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EDUCATION ABROAD,

AND OTHER PAPERS.

BY

BIRDSEY GRANT NORTHROP, LL.D.,

SECRETARY OF CONNECTICUT BOARD OF EDUCATION.

m ii^^M »

IXtVD $ork anb (ETliicago :
A. S. BARNES & OO

1873.

EDUCATION ABROAD,

AND OTHER PAPERS.

BY

BIRDSEY GRANT NORTHROP, LL.D.,

SECRETARY OF CONNECTICUT BOARD OF EDUCATION.

m ii^^M »

NetD $ork anb (ETliicago :
A. S. BARNES & OO

1873.

Entered, according to act of CongreBs, in the year 1878«

BY BIBDSEY GRANT NOBTHBOP,

in the office of the Librarian of Congreas, at Washington.

PBIKTED BY

TUTTLE, MOBEHOUSE & TAYLOB,

221 Statx ST., Nxv Hatsn, Ct.

TO

The Hon. JOHN AMORY LOWELL,

OF THE LOWELL INSTITUTB,
BOSTOK,

THIS BOOK
18 BESPECTFULLY DEDICATED.

CONTENTS.

• ♦•

SHOULD AMERICAN TOUTH BE EDUCATED ABROAD?

Schools of Prussia over-praised — German Universities — Moral Atmosphere and
Political Influences — Caesarism — Opinions of Presidents of our leading Col-
leges — President Steams of Amherst, Eliot of Harvard, Crosby of New
York University, Angell of Michigan University, Caswell of Brown Univer-
sity, Reed of University of Missouri, Fairchild of Oberlin, Kitchel of Mid-
dlebury. Brooks of Kalamazoo, Buckham of University of Vermont, Andrews
of Marietta, Porter of Yale, Chadboum of Williams, Jackson of Trinity, Bar-
nard of Columbia, McCosh of the College of New Jersey, Eliot of "Washing-
ton University, Chapin of Beloit, Smith of Dartmouth, Dr. J. P. Thompson,
and other eminent Educators and Journals,.-- Page 5

LEGAL PREVENTION OP ILLITERACY. -

Compulsory Education favored by the laboring classes in Germany — Similar pro-
visions early adopted in Massachusetts and Connecticut and Education then
universal — Causes of absenteeism and illiteracy. Remedies — Objections
answered — Switzerland, Holland, Austria, France, England — ^Views of Jules
Simon, Guizot, Geo. Dixon, M. P., and W: E. Forster, M. P. — ^Working Men's
Congress — Joseph Arch, > Page 77

CULTURE AND KNOWLEDGE.

Motto of Pres. Woolsey — True theory of Education — ^The Processes best for dis^
cipline, best also for acquisition — ^These principles applicable even to the
simplest rudiments — ^Law of Memory — Power of using the faculties and
resources the secret of success — Permanency of teachers in Gtermany, Swit-
zerland, Ontario and United States compared — ^Foreign systems in this respect
superior, ^ * ..--.* ^..-t. Page 06

THE PROFESSIONAL STUDY.

Mental Philosophy the foundation of Didactics— An aid in Mental Discipline —
Shows the true methods and aim of study — Faculties to be educated — Order
of their Development — Adaptation of exercises and studies to each — Proper
order of studies — ^i^avors self-knowledge — Dignifles the Teacher's work —
Facilitates school government — Philosophy of Motive, Page 110

VI CONTENTS.

STUDY AND HEALTH.

Slaughter of the Innooents — ^Laws of Hygiene— Healthof German boys and Eng-
lish girls — Precocity — Study favorable to health — Illustrations from West
Point and Amherst College — Drones have the toughest time — More rust
out than wear out — ^Health and Longevity of Scholars — Statistics of Yale
and Harvard Graduates, Page 120

LABOR AS AN EDUCATOR.

A help in intellectual culture — ^Business pursuits may educate — Every child should
learn to work — Rural life healthful for the juvenile mind — Apprentice-
ships encouraged — ^Their limitation an infringement of the rights of minors
— Short-sighted policy of "Trade Unions" — "Genteel" employments —
Skilled mechanics — Influence of Industrial Schools of Grermany and Switzer-
land in dignifying labor, and turning artisans to artists — Rule of the
Hebrews, Page 135

EDUCATION AND INDUSTRIAL ARTS.

The Labor Question — ^Education the solution — Education and Industrial Progress
— ^Massachusetts and Connecticut History — Universal Exposition in Paris —
English Testimony — Prol Tyndall, Dr. Playfair, A. JS Mundella, M. P.,
«][. Scott Russell, and others — Cause of Decline of English Man^^tures —
I^arliamentary Report, - PageT44-

EDUCATION AND INVENTION.

Exp^enee of Connecticut — Education universal — Hence Inventiveness and
thrift — Evidence from Patent OflSce — Gen. Eaton, PageJ^53

LABOR AND CAPITAL THEORETICALLY HARMQNT^ED.

Adjustment of Labor and Capital a leading question of the age— The difficulty
not settled by the Internationals and the Commune, nor by Violence,
Force or Law — But by Fair Play, Mutual Concession and Cooperation —
Equality of Conditions unnatural — Capital and Labor Co-partners — Strikes
harmful to both — Political Economy in Schools — Manufacturing invited or
repelled, Page 156

LABOR AND CAPITAL PRACTICALLY HARMONIZED.

A Model Manufacturing Village — ^Half century's experience — Strikes unknown —
Workmen permanent, well paid, own homesteads, get forehanded — ^Boards
of Arbitration and Conciliation — English methods of harmonizing Labor and
Capital — ^Industrial Partnerships, Cooperation, Page 161

APPENDIX.
Letter of Dr. J. P. Thompson from Berlin — German accuracy in minutise — Nar-
rowness of fheir scholarship— America no longer a borrower, .... Page 172

PREFACE,

• ♦•

The educational systems of Europe have many distinctive
excellences which we need to copy. My objections to educating
American youth abroad do not arise from any disparagement of
foreign systems, as will be evident in another volume on " The
Schools of Europe and what we ought to learn from
THEM," comprising most of the twelve lectures lately given before
the Lowell Institute. Two lectures only of that course appear in
this book. To check the mischievous mania for European edu-
cation, just now in fashion, I have procured and combined the
opinions of the most competent judges in this country, and also
of an eminent American scholar long resident in Berlin, who has
carefully examined German schools and systems of instruction,
and gives the testimony of an eye-witness. The last letter of
Dr. Thompson, received too late for insertion with the others,
will be found in the appendix. All the correspondents addressed
endorsed my views except one who " had not examined the sub-
ject." The unanimous opinions of these eminent educators should
influence public sentiment. The coftperation of the press is
respectfully solicited in correcting the prevalent error in question.

The other papers embody views confirmed by long service in
the official inspection of schools, and are designed to meet urgent
public exigences. In the Southern States, compulsory education
would yet be premature. In the older States, public sentiment is
rapidly advancing in favor of the legal prevention of illiteracy.
After the trial of a compulsory law for more than a century, Con-
necticut has just reSnacted this principle. This question is now
more prominently before the American people than ever before.

vVs

SHOULD AMERICAN YOUTH BE EDUCATED

ABROAD ?

The practice of educating American youth abroad has been
steadily growing for a long period. But the present year has
witnessed an unprecedented exodus of our youth to Europe.
The extraordinary attractions of the Vienna Exposition are not
the only explanation of this great migration. The fancied
superiority of European schools, the supposed economy of liv
ing on the continent, and a vague ambition for '* foreign
culture" have alike contributed to this result. More than allj
fashion has given its sanction and created a furor in favor of
European education. Example is contagious. The multitude
now departing are likely to draw thousands mora Principals
of foreign schools, soon to arrive, are already advertised to
leave New York in August or September to escort the pupils
committed to their care. Their circulars, some of them offen-
sively pretentious, are sent widely over this country. Resident
agents are employed to push their schemes.

The discussion of this subject is therefore timely. Connecti*
cut cannot render a better service to her own schools or to the
country, than by helping to check a fashion which practically
disparages our own institutions, and withdraws the sympathies
of those who would otherwise most liberally support them.

American and European schools have their distinctive excel-
lences, and can each learn much from the other. Of late the
schools of Prussia have been over-praised. Though justly
lauded by Horace Mann, Professor Stowe and others, thirty
years ago, they do not retain the same preeminence. Rela-
tively there has been greater progress in some other lands.

The Prussian system, though of acknowledged excellence, is
in some measure stereotyped. A just pride in the laurels won,
now tends towards satisfaction with past achievements. Such
complacency does not foster that spirit of progress and improve-
ment so conspicuous in Austria and America. The commen-
dations well deserved in the days of Dinter no longer belong
exclusively or specially to the Prussians. Stimulated, indeed,
by their illustrious example at the outset, others have over-

1

6 EDUCATION ABROAD.

taken them in the race. These remarks apply to their public
school system rather than to their magnificent universities and
other higher institutions, which open opportunities for the
broadest culture to the graduates of our colleges, especially to
those in training for professorships, with fixed principles, studi-
ous habits, and disciplined minds. For the want of these
requisites many American students fail to receive substantial
benefit, even from the German universities. Inadequate prepa-
ration and application make those grand lecture courses com-
paratively worthless to them. Such passive absorption is not
the true process of education. But aside from the universities,
the so-called golden opportunities of continental culture have
been greatly exaggerated.

For our youth, American schools are better than European.
To send our boys or girls away to foreign boarding schools is
a great mistake, or rather, one of the fashionable follies which
is just now having its day. With fashion one cannot reason.
I do not object that this fashion is costly in money, for that is
one of its attractions, but costly in what is worth vastly more
than gold, namely, character and practical culture. This fash-
ion of to-day, experience and a wiser self-respect will surely
rectify when the comparative results of the two systems come
to be better understood. The fond hopes so often wrecked in
foreign lands will at least serve as beacons in the future. It is
not in France alone that a moral malaria pervades the atmos-
phere. The example of other cities besides Paris and Naples
refutes the plausible but pernicious aphorism of Burke, that
" vice loses half its evil by parting with all its grossness." In
these luxurious centres a voluptuous refinement veils the gross-
est immorality under' simulations of delicacy, if not under the
sanctions of law, and licenses vice herself, if only robed in the
semblance of propriety. A thin veneering covers the foulest
corruption. To offend against taste is worse than to break the
ten commandments, and vice has less to fear than vulgarity.

If parents accompany their children and still surround them
with the restraints and inspirations of home, these objections
are mainly obviated. The great advantage of foreign travel I
freely admit Personal observations abroad may happily sup-
plement the siQhool, remove narrowness, and stimulate the

EDUCATION ABEOAD. 7

desire for knowledge. There is some sense in the old saying,
" Drill a child thoroughly in the elements, and then set him on
a horse and trot him round the world."

In tlie German schools the course of study is so unlike ours,
the subjects and methods so peculiar, and the processes so slow,
as to weary, if not disgust the American boy. To him the
school rules seem odd, if not arbitrary. Many American boys
I found there ill at ease, if not discontented, grumbling and
homesick, because, they said, these strange methods are not so
well fitted to serve the practical ends of life, and meet the con-
ditions of success in America.

In philological studies and researches, in the refinements of
art, in music and in manners, European schools excel But
this linguistic and aesthetic culture, admirable as it is, poorly
compensates for the loss of a more practical training, and for
the neglect of our own vernacular and literature, too common
with our boys educated abroad. These exiles return too often
un- Americanized, if not un-Christianized. After carefully ob-
serving both processes and results, with large numbers educated
abroad and at home, the conviction is forced upon me that the
thousands of our youth schooled abroad return with an educa-
tion less substantial than that afforded here, and what is far
worse, with character less matured, even if not impaired.

The breadth and art, the elegance and refinement, with perhaps,
the assumption of foreign airs, or aping of European customs,
are by no means the surest conditions of success, in the practical
duties and stern realities of American life. It should be remem-
bered, too, that laws, customs, manners and institutions educate
as well as the school Like an atmosphere, this influence sur-
rounds the child and unconsciously moulds his character. This,
element, healthful and invigorating in republics, is repressive
in monarchies, where you witness on every hand an obsequious-
ness to rank, a deference to usage, an unquestioning submission
to mere authority, unfriendly to the elasticity, the indepen-
dence, and still more to the aspirations of the juvenile mind.
The gendarme standing at every comer is only one of many
reminders that there is always near you, or rather over you, the
outstretched arm of resistless power. The incentives and
methods employed in school government in America are more

8 EDUCATION ABROAD.

healthful and stimulating than those found abroad, where
school discipline conforms to the prevailing political ideas and
is essentially despotic. The military spirit is now dominant
and all-pervasive in Germany. The school is one of the
appointed agencies for diffusing aristocratic ideas and fortifying
monarchical institutions. Education naturally conforms to the
prevailing political sentiments. Our system aims at the
development, protection, and prosperity of the individual
There the State is always the central figura With us the
Government is for the people as well as of the people. There
the people are for the Government, and the children are taught
that they belong to the State, somewhat as they do to their
parents.

The juvenile mind, pliant and docile, yields to surrounding
•associations. Political freedom favors individual independence
.and manliness. Our vouth should therefore be educated as
Americans, and be well grounded in American ideas and prin-
<;iples. In the knowledge of men and things, in courage and
aspiration, in push and energy, in solid utility, in the adapta-
tion of means to ends, Americanism means more than German-
ism or any other nationali^sm.

To profit by the superior scholarship of the German gymna-
sium, the full course should be mastered, which occupies eight
years. A partial course will be but a beginning in many
branches, with the completion of none. The American boy
meeds about two yeara of preparation, especially in mastering
the German language, for he cannot catch the spirit of the
school while the recitations are in an unknown tongue.

Among the valuable results of such a ten-years* course may
be named, 1. A thorough mastery of the German language,
one of the most difficult as well as one of the most important
of modem languages. 2. The most thorough training in the
ancient classics, including both writing and speaking Latin, if
not Greek. 3. Familiarity with German history and literature,
with something of general history. 4. Besides the usual ma-
thematical studies, prominence is given to drawing, music and
^* manners.*' The aesthetic element is carefully developed. Ad-
mitting, then, the excellence of this instruction, does it com-
pensate for the want of home influences at this formative period

EDUCATION ABROAD. 9

— from eight to eighteen years — when character is largely
moulded and fixed ? Then, more than ever, a youth needs
the impulses, the instructions and aspirations that cluster
around home, kindred and friends.

American society and associations, giving a practical knowl-
edge of our modes of thought, intercourse and influence, are
the very educational forces needed by the American student
who aspires to lead or control public sentiment The best
training for public life in Germany is not, of course, the surest
promise of success here. For American boys, German history
is disproportionably prominent As in the study of geography
they wisely begin with the school-house, and then the village
or city where they live, and build up all the world around that
centre, so all the historical world revolves around Germany as
the centre. In connection with the thorough study of their
own annals, love of country is most thoroughly and ably taught
in German schools.

These manifold agencies, to a remarkable degree, develop
the noble sentiment of devotion to Fatherland. But the pat-
riotism there taught is so intimately associated with loyalty to
the king, that it is inoperative on American boys. Discarding
Caesarism, these inculcations of the> duty of homage to the
emperor, and of the doctrine of the divine right of kings, are
foreign to them. The real truth, so much better than regal
assumptions and royal prerogatives, they do not learn, and so
the ties are not formed that should bind them to their native land.
Constantly hearing laudations of monarchical governments, and
disparagements of free institutions, the youth exiled at ten
years of age do not learn to prize and love their native land.
The magnificent architecture, the grand libraries, art galleries,
churches, cathedrals and palaces, the museums, monuments
and triumphal arches, the zoological and botanical gardens,
impress their tender minds with such a glamour that they come
into unconscious, if not avowed sympathy with this deprecia-
tion of their own country, and are virtually de-nationalized.

The experience of American colleges is believed to be nearly
uniform as to the superiority in the qualification of candi-
dates trained at home over our youth prepared for college
abroad. The number of the latter class is relatively smalL

10 EDUCATION ABROAD.

But the instances of eminent success, either in college studies
or practical life on the part of American boys, chiefly educated
abroad, are rare and exceptional.

It is plausibly said that our girls and boys ai'e usually
educated abroad in private boarding schools specially adapted
to foreign youth. While there are some excellent schools of
this kind, there are many others superficial and pretentious.
The public schools of Germany are greatly superior to their
private institutions. An eminent American author, with the
best opportunities of observation, says, " There is no end to the
swindling and pretence on the part of boarding schools in
France and Germany.'' Says another, " My boy was swindled
out of ten years* progress in a boarding school abroad." A
prominent gentleman in Washington now acknowledges " re-
sults prove that sending my boy three years to Germany was
unwise." An artist whose tastes and business favored his con-
tinuing abroad, where he had spent six years, and became
thoroughly acquainted with European methods of education,
says, **I have returned to America for the sake of my children."
Similar experiences might be multiplied.

On such a question as this, opinions may be more influential
than arguments. Certainly the mature judgiuent of our most
experienced educators, those who have had wide opportunities
for observing both methods and results at home and abroad, is
entitled to special consideration. I therefore presented this
question to' the presidents of our leading colleges, and other
eminent educators of our country, requesting their views, with
liberty to print them. All but one thus addressed have replied,
substantially endorsing my own convictions. Their position,
culture and experience give weight to the opinions expressed,
especially as some of them were once advocates of foreign edu-
cation. The opinions of such men must command attention.
Indeed they comprise the most authoritative verdict ever ren-
dered on this subject.

The letters appended are given in the order of date, omitting
only personal allusions. Though difiering in their points of
observation and in the objections named, they all concur in
the same general conclusions. The following summary em-
braces the more prominent points urged :

EDUCATION ABROAD. 11

1. All agree that the elementary and preparatory studies
should be pursued at home.

2. Nearly all concur in the view that the collegiate course
also should be completed in our own country.

3. There is a general agreement in favor of first completing
the ordinary professional course in our own institutions.

4. Many favor a post-graduate course for the fuller pursuit of
certain specialties in some of the great universities of Europe.

5. For the elementary and undergraduate studies, the exper-
iments of mixing American and foreign systems of education
fail oftener than they succeed. The gain is but a fraction com- .-
pared with the loss. " It is surely to save at the spigot and let
out at the bung-liole."

6. Many cases are cited of persons who now deplore the
mistake of their juvenile exile abroad, and their want of early
training in incipient citizenship and the practical lessons of
American life. " Such facts are attested by the sad experience '
of hundreds of American families." :

7. One correspondent characterizes the class of persons de-
scribed as cosmopolitan as "an unhappy, useless and sterile
breed ; " and another speaks of them as a " hybrid class, neither
Europeans nor Americans, ill adapted to practical duties in
either hemisphere, out of adjustment with our society, and out ■
of sympathy with our simple American lifa"

8. Superintendent Fallows cites the testimony of the leading
German educators among us. While th^y complain of certain
defects in our system, they are emphatic in saying, " American
schools in processes and results are the best for American chil-
dren."

9. Some affirm that competent Americans succeed better in •
teaching modern languages than foreign professors. Though
knowing less of the language taught, they understand better
the difficulties to be overcome, and the way to meet them. *

10. American teachers show more tact and skill in stimu-
lating and controlling American boys. Some speak of the
want of adaptation and of success on the part of foreign teachers
in American schools and colleges in the control of their classes.

11. Those who have been abroad from five to eight years in
their preparatory course are usually found far behind their old -»•
school associates in their studies.

12 EDUCATION ABROAD.

12. The " code of honor " prevalent in German universities
is deprecated. The marks of the duel, which some American
students have brought from Heidelberg and other German
universities, are not here held as badges of honor.

13. The lecture-room system "is ill adapted to ordinary stu-
dents, however profitable to advanced scholars."

14. The constant advocacy of monarchical government, and
disparagement of republican institutions, together with the dis-
plays and pomp of royalty, tend to denationalize and un-
Americanize the susceptible youth resident abroad from the
age of ten to twenty years. The statesmen of Europe are
experts in the use of pageants, displays and amusements.
These specious proofs of princely munificence, and of regal sym-
pathy with popular wants, are really efiective forces to develop
the loyalty of the masses, if not to repress thought and paralyze
efibrts for liberty,

15. National sentiments, traditions and histories, as well as
social sympathies, strongly mould the plastic mind of childhood.
Our exiled youth not only lose these needed lessons, but also
those healthful local attachments which should bind them to
the homestead, the neighborhood, the town or city, and the
State.

16. The special facilities for studying modem languages
abroad are generally conceded. Some, however, contend that
the mastery of the principles and philosophy of a language by
the study of its grammar and lexicon gives a higher discipline
than the art of speaking acquired merely by conversation.
Such fluency of speech comes by imitation — is easily gotten
and soon forgotten, unless retained by practice. The power to
read German authors is a higher attainment than the ability to
use glibly the fewer phrases and smaller vocabulary recurring
in ordinary conversation.

17. The methods and motives of school government are more
healthful and inspiring at home than abroad. The " tunding,'*
caning and flogging, so common in England, are barbarous.
The discipline in European schools is essentially arbitrary and
despotic. The military spirit is pervasive, and ill suited to
American youth. The schools, instead of holding their grad-
uates with pleasant memories, are often referred to with regret^

f not disgust.

EDUCATION ABROAD. 13

18. The cheapness of living was once an attraction to German
schools, but the late Prussian war and the lavish expenditures
of some Americans have combined to advance prices, so that
economy no longer invites to European schools. To some their
greater cost has only made them seem the more aristocratic and
attractive.

19. The moral risks incurred by our youth in foreign board-
ing schools are great

20. Conceit is too often fostered with boys inclined to accept
the semblance for the substance. '*It sounds large to say,
*I was educated at Berlin.*" Modesty is the characteristic of
true scholarship. While the genuine student is unharmed, the
very young or superficial may become unduly inflated, and
"get a foolish and hurtful taint of foreign airs."

21. The advantages of foreign travel after the requisite pre-
paratory studies are fully conceded by all and urged by many.

22. Last and least, though by no means an unimportant ob-
jection, is the cost of foreign education. The average number
of Americans visiting or resident in Europe is over fifty thou-
sand, and the present season still larger, by reason of the Inter-
national Exposition. The number at school is now greater
than ever. The export and appreciation of gold and corre-
sponding depreciation of our currency are sensibly aflfected by
this mania for European education.

Amherst College^ 2d April, 1873.
Hon. B. G. Northhop.

My Dear Sir : — I have read your article entitled, ** Should
American youth be educated abroad ?" with great interest. 1
agree with you generally in the views you have so appropriately
expressed. As a general rule, American youth should be edu-
cated essentially in America. If they would be thorough
scholars, let them go through the entire preparatory and colle-
giate courses at home. Let them acquire a thorough knowledge
of the German and French languages, as far as may be possible,
in a country where these languages are not the vernacular,
and make efficient progress in the professional specialities to
which they are intending to devote their lives. They can then
go abroad, and spending a portion of their time in travel and a

14 EDUCATION ABROAD.

portion in some manly study at the great universities of Europe,
they will find their labor renumerative, their minds enriched,
and their higher lives, it may be hoped, not injured. A stu-
dent, it is believed, thus prepared, can obtain more valuable
knowledge and inspiration in a few months, than without a
broad and solid American ground work of study he would
probably do in as many years. And what is better, if he should
happen to think himself into the thick German fogs, his well
trained American practical sense will be likely to bring him
out again, when otherwise he might live in the cloud-lands of
obscurity, on some subjects, all the rest of his days, and never
know the difiference between luminous vapor and sunlight.

Yours truly,

W. A. STEAENS,

President of Amherst College,

Harvard University, )

Cambridge^ Mass,^ 5th April, 1873. f

My Dear Sir : — ^I should want to have an American boy who
was destined to pass his adult life in Germany educated at a
German gymnasium, and a German university. For similar
reasons, I should want to have a German boy who was to spend
his life in the United States educated at American schools,
and in an American college, in spite of the fact that our educa-
tional institutions of all grades are inferior to the German.
Experiments in mixing the two systems of education for the
same child have seemed to me to fail very much often er than
they succeeded. To lose home and church and country for
years, for the sake of gaining better teaching in Latin, Greek,
natural history, and mathematics, is surely to save at the spigot
and let out at the bung-hole, so far as the formation of charac-
ter is concerned. Young Americans may wisely make short
excursions to Europe, for the sake of learning the languages,
acquiring some knowledge of art, and enlarging their interests.
Young men of mature mind and trained powers of observation
may profitably spend some time abroad when their education
at home has been finished. But to send American boys or
girls to European schools for long periods is, I believe, a great
risk. My observation of the class of persons described as cos-

EDUCATION ABROAD. 15

mopolitan has led me to think them, as a rule, an unhappy,
useless and sterile breed.

The most important things in education are not school and
university programmes, but rather home affections, young com-
panionships, natural scenery and climate, national customs and
manners, hereditary beliefs and the prevailing mental atmos-
phere. That education seems to me a failure which does not
cherish and strengthen the love of country. Prolonged resi
dence abroad in youth, before the mental fibre is solidified
and the mind has taken its tone, has a tendency to enfeeble the
love of country, and to impair the foundations of public spirit
in the individual citizen. This pernicious influence is indefin-
able, but none the less real In a strong nation, the education
of the young is indigenous and national. It is a sign of imma-
turity or decrepitude when a nation has to import its teachers,
or send abroad its scholars.

These are my ideas, very hastily expressed, on the subject to
which you invite my attention.

Yery truly yours,

CHAELES W. ELIOT,

President of Harvard University,

WiUiamstown, April 1th, 1873.

Dear Sir: — "We are not to undervalue what has been done in
the old world, but it is not the office of the new to copy it.
Availing ourselves of it as far as possible, we are to absorb and
reproduce it in new forms and under better conditions. This
work is well begun. We have a new mould for society, cast on
principles different from any tried heretofore ; and the question
is whether the material can be conformed to the mould. Look-
ing at the vast foreign and refractory current flowing into it,
many have been led to doubt, but the general feeling has been
hopeful. This may well be if we are true to ourselves. But
failing of this, conceding virtually the superiority, on the whole,
of the old and the foreign, and seeking to reproduce them, we
shall neither be ourselves nor anybody else. What we have to
do is, without conceit or over-sensitiveness to the opinions of

16 EDUCATION ABROAD.

others, to respect ourselves, to do what we can for our own in-
stitutions, and to bide our time.

Of course there will be exceptions, but in my opinion a
higher tone of character, greater usefulness, and more happiness
will generally, and very generally, be secured by an education,
till fixed principles shall be formed, under the inspiration and
formative power of our own history, and. institutions, and
hopea Truly yours,

MARK HOPKINS,

Ex-President Williams College,

New York University, )
April lO^A, 1873. J

Dear Sir : — The only advantage Europe has over America in
the matter of education is in her libraries and galleries. But
these can be used profitably only by the advanced scholar.
The average youth of twelve to twenty years old could gain
but little, if any, additional benefit in his studies from all the
libraries and galleries of Europe combined.

Per contra : America offers advantages unknown in Europe,
unless we except Great Britain, to wit, moral atmosphere that
stimulates activity, a course of preferment open alike to all, and
in teachers and methods a sound common sense, by which last
I mean a quickness to perceive the right relation of things,
without which mere learning is a clumsy and useless load. In
continental Europe these conditions are wanting. Prestige
and prejudice repress free development, privilege regulates
preferment, and prescription leads learning into very narrow
and crooked ways. Learning in America is not so minute as
in Europe, but it is far more correct. We are untrammeled
by old obligations and compromises, and hence can go whither
truth leads without fear of side issues. I speak of learning in
general. Particular branches of researcli are undoubtedly pur-
sued farther abroad than here, but those belong to the man
after twenty and not to the boy under twenty, if he is to be prop-
erly educated. And even in these branches, it is only the statistical
element, (the collections of facts by elaborate industry,) that I
would value in European institutions above our own. For the

EDUCATION ABBOAD. 17

logical element^ the reasoning upon facts and reaching wise con-
clusions, commend me to a healthy American mind far before
the learned mind of continental Europe.

These are my reasons, briefly and crudely stated in my hurry,
for advising American parents to keep their sons at home, for the
best education, until twenty years of age, and then^ if a young
man wishes to pursue any special branch of study as his life-
work, let him go to Europe for the benefit of its libraries and
galleries. Most of the movement to Europe for education is
the result of two false causes, a strutting fashion and parental
weakness. It sounds large to say " I was educated at Berlin,"
and parents, who are so largely governed by their children,
yield to the son's solicitations, and perhaps are themselves quite
pleased to say to their neighbors, "Our son is attending lec-
tures at Bonn and Heidelberg."

I have yet to see the first Europe-educated American youth
who ever gained any glory from his European experience.

Yours very truly,

HOWARD CROSBY,

President of the New York University,

Ann Arbor ^ April 11, 1873.
My Bear Sir, — I fully concur in the views you express in
the article you send me. I have had frequent occasions to
present to parents substantially the same arguments against
sending children abroad for their education. As a rule, in my
opinion, students should finish their collegiate education at
home, before repairing to foreign institutions of learning. In
most cawses it is best for them to complete their professional
studies before going abroad.

The reasons for this opinion are so clearly set forth by you,
that I need not dwell upon them. I am sure that you are
doing a great service to our youth and to our country, in cor-
recting the prevalent errors upon this subject. I shall look
with great interest for your fuller discussion of the topic.

Yours truly,

JAMES B. ANGELL,

President of Michigan University.

18 EDUCATION ABROAD.

Atlanta^ Ga,, April llth^ 1873.
Dear Sir, — The fashion of sending the youth of the country
abroad to be educated had not prevailed to any general extent
in the south before the late war, and, since that time, our
people have been without the means to follow the fashion ; so
that we are almost entirely without experience on the sub-
ject I have read your article sent me, and am well convinced
that the general views therein presented are sound. While I
have met with but a very small number of our own people
who had received their educational training abroad, I have
very frequently been brought in contact with foreign teachers
and professors. I have never known one of these who had
ever attained to a high measure of success as an instructor. A
number that I have known have been men of very great learn-
ing ; but the social and political influences that had been
brought to bear upon them, and the shape which their charac-
ters had taken from their surroundings in the formative period,
seemed to disqualify them from finding access to youth reared
under influences, in almost all respects, entirely diverse. In
their little college communities they bore the reputation of
possessing learning without the ability to turn it to practical
avail in imparting instruction to others. I may say, further,
that I have never known one of these foreign professors who
had the power to control American boys. They were not
dreaded by the idle, the merely mischievous or the vicious, and
their lecture rooms have often been simply theaters of disorder.
It seems to me that the same want of power to instruct and
to control would, to some extent, be encountered by our youth
transplanted to a foreign soil and placed under foreign instruc-
tors. We all know that the foreign universities are in advance
of our best institutions, and present facilities not to be enjoyed
here. The lecture system, however, which they follow, is
adapted to m^n, capable, to some extent at least, of making
independent investigations, and not to boys to whom, up to a
certain period, the drill of text-book recitation is indispensable.
I must say with you, then, that while these higher advantages,
in exceptional cases, are desirable, let those of our youth who
go abroad to enjoy them leave us with minds sufficiently
matured, and with sufficient knowledge of the tongud spoken.

EDUCATION ABROAD. .19

to profit by them ; and with moral primciples sufficiently estab-
lished to resist any adverse influences that may be brought to
bear upon them.

Eespectfully yours,

GUSTAVUS J. OEE,

State School Commissioner,

Providence^ April 12, 1873.

Dear Sivy — You ask my opinion upon the question, ** Should
American youth be educated abroad?" An answer to this
question presupposes, perhaps, a more thorough acquaintance
with foreign schools than I possess ; I, therefore, speak with
diffidence. But from such limited personal inspection of for-
eign schools as I have had occasion to make, and from the
observed results of training in the cases of youths who have
been educated wholly, or in part, in them, my impression is
decidedly unfavorable to sending young men abroad for ele-
mentary instruction. And by elementary instruction I mean all
the studies which precede and constitute the college course,
as usually pursued in this country.

The instruction in our own schools may not be more exact
than in the foreign, but the drill seems to me to be more thor-
ough. It seems to be more effective and better adapted to the
habits and genius of American youth. It is my impression
also that with us instruction on the same subject has, if I may
so say, more amplitude than with them. Its historic, scientific
and practical relations are more fully developed. 1 speak
now, of course, of our best preparatory schools and colleges.

I know of only one special advantage of studying abroad ; —
and that is the opportunity of acquiring some degree of flu-
ency in speaking a foreign tongue. I limit the advantage to
speaking, for to my mind it is far from being clear that the
grammar and idioms and critical uses of the language may not
be as well acquired here as thera It is also to be remarked
that fluency of speaking in a foreign language is often the
result of imitation, — of readily catching sounds by the ear, —
without any knowledge of its principles, and is of little use for
any other purpose than speaking. Many a child returns from

20 EDUCATION ABKOAD.

a few years residence abroad with an enviable fluency in speak-
ing a foreign tongue, which is lost in less time than it was
acquired.

But admitting that in acquiring a language there is a great
advantage in a foreign residence, I think that this is more than
counterbalanced by the want of that thorough training which
stimulates, and strengthens and develops the intellectual
powers.

I say nothing here of the tendency of foreign education to
engender in the minds of young riien ideas inimical to the
genius of republican institutions, and subversive of that Prot-
estant faith which we hold so dear. I say nothing in relation
to the imminent peril to good morals and good habits which
besets the pathway of an immature and inexperienced youth in
a foreign city. It is, however, a consideration which must not
be overlooked in a system of education.

The proper time, in my opinion, to seek instruction abroad
is after the completion of the collegiate course at home. For
professional studies in philology and science, the schools of
France and Germany, no doubt, offer, at present, advantages
not to be obtained elsewhere. I trust, however, that this con-
cession is only temporary. There is surely no reason in the
nature of the case why the schools of America, with their
rapid growth, should not, in the early future, rival the schools
of the most advanced nation.

I am yours very truly,

ALEXIS CASWELL,

Ex' President Brown University,

Ukivebsity op the State op Missouri, )
Columbia^ Mo,^ April 12, 1873. j

Dear Sir^ — I concur with you in every sentence and senti*
ment which you utter as to the inexpediency of sending our
youth abroad for education. It is worse than folly. The ten-
dency in this direction ought to be checked — not merely as to
children, but even as to college graduates. In half the
instances with which I have been conversant, these latter have
been injured not only in their morale^ but otherwise, by resi-

EDUCATION ABROAD. 21

dence in foreign universities. I do not wish to say there are
no instances of great benefit ; this will be the case to the high
scholar, the thorough student, the young man with formed
habits, moral and intellectual.

I have at this time a daughter in Germany, there for purposes
of cultura But in the first place she is twenty-two years old ;
she was a thorough Latin and German scholar when she went
out I took extraordinary pains to surround her with favor-
able circumstances, placing her at first in the old Lutheran
town of Merburg, where she would see unmixed German life
and hear no word of English, then under Prof Otto at Heidel-
berg, afterwards tarrying in Dresden, Berlin, Leipsic, and now
under Prof. Otto Peder at Darmstadt I would not think of
sending abroad a younger son or daughter.

The old cry was, " America to be ruled by Americans ;" still
more must Americans be educated in America and by Ameri-
cans. We must bring up our institutions, the literary and pro-
fessional, scientific and practical, to the first standard of the
world. When a young man has had the full advantage of our
institutions of highest education, let him go abroad, if he sees
fit A residence in the Imperial University at Peking would
do him good, as enlarging his views of our common humanity.

Now, even in regard to men preparing themselves for college
professorships, I have found them returning with so many
impractical and impracticable notions of education, that I con-
fess I should not select a professor simply on the ground of resi-
dence in a foreign university, over the candidate thoroughly
trained in American institutions.

We have an example of another kind now in our university.
He is a young man of twenty-three. He prepared for college at
Exeter, New Hampshire. He went fi'om Exeter to school at Lau-
sanne, Switzerland. It is his regret now that he did not at once
go to Harvard or Yale, or some American college. He is a man
of ability, but his education abroad dissipated rather than concen
trated his studies and his habits of study.

Information is needed to correct the evil. It has grown to
be one of magnitude. When our people understand the mat-
ter, they will act accordingly.

22 EDUCATION ABROAD.

I cannot withhold another case. This last summer, a young
man called to see me, of as fine physique as I ever saw, over
six feet high, broad chest, well-proportioned ; his face was terri-
bly scarred, so much so that I was induced to make enquiry.
I really supposed he had been almost cut to pieces in the bat-
tles of our civil war. But the gentleman introducing him,
said, " O, no, these are the marks of Heidelberg, where he has
resided a couple of years." I afterward learned that he main-
tained the honor of American prowess in the university, and
was the most celebrated swordsman in all Heidelberg, and that
all American travelers were sure to be congratulated on their
powerful countryman, and that never, but for a short time, was
his position questioned, and that by a giant-like Eussian, but
even over him he finally triumphed, but not until after receiv-
ing wounds the scars of which will always remain. I cannot
say how many American students win victories of this kind.

My brave Kentuckian has settled down in Leavenworth, and
promises to make an excellent citizen ; but how much Heidel-
berg did for him in the way of scholarly attainment, neither
himself nor others are able exactly to see.

I am very truly yours,

DANIEL BEAD,

President of the State University.

Office of Supt. of Public Instbuction, )
St Paul, Minn., April 12th, 1873. J

Dear Sir, — ^I have read with much interest what you say
upon the subject of sending American youths abroad to be
educated. I regard your views as sound. It is a matter upon
which I have bestowed much thought The conclusions to
which I came, long since, coincide substantially with yours. It
seems to me that every true-hearted American, having in view
the best interests of his country, must come to the same conclu-
sion. There can be nothing so vital to the prosperity and pros-
pective perpetuity of our government and free institutions as
the matter of giving our sons a true American education. By
this I mean that the course of study and training should be
adapted to impress on the minds of American boys the value

EDUCATION ABBOAD. 28

of republican institutions, the dignity of American citizenship,
and the responsibility connected with that citizenship. In
my judgment, the instruction our boys receive in a foreign
country is very poorly calculated to accomplish these results.

Despotisms educate their subjects in such a manner as will
perpetuate power in the hands of the executive head and the
favored few, and republics should have their citizens educated
to enjoy and perpetuate free institutions. It is true, that
although natural philosophy and the mathematics must be
taught in the same manner in Eussia and Prussia as in the
United States, the general scope of education must, like the end
to be attained by it, be entirely different German youths,
while they study the sciences as they are taught in the United
States, must be instructed in a different literature, and disci-
plined for a different career from that of an American. One
is to be the obedient subject of a power which, to him, is
divine, and which it would be criminal in him to attempt to
subvert or change. The other is likewise to be obedient bujt to
laws enacted by the people, and to authority emanating directly
from the governed. One is to be a responsible citizen, the
other an irresponsible subject ; and as different as are the duties
which each is to be called upon to perform, so different should
be the general training to which they should be severally sub-
jected to enable them honorably to discharge them.

If, then, we- would have a true American loyalty stamped
upon the hearts of our youths by the necessary influences and
instruction so that they will glory in it, not only in their own
country, but when duty calls them into foreign lands, under
the very shadow of royalty, we must provide for their educa-
tion at home. They must be taught that they are born to an
excellent inheritance, and that it is a glory to be an upright,
intelligent citizen of the United States. They must be in-
. structed in 103'^alty to their country, to venerate its noble con-
stitution, and to regard as enemies of liberty those that would
destroy it If these results are to be secured, our young men
must not be brought under influences that will produce results,
directly contrary to these.

I am, with great respect, truly yours,

H. B. WILSON,

State Superintendent of Schools.

24 EDUCATION ABROAD.

Cambridge^ April 14^A, 1873.

Dear Sir^ — The subject of educating American youth in
foreign schools, of which you have so ably treated, is not a
new one to my mind, nor can I hesitate in the conclusion to
which I have come upon the question. Whether I test it by a
course of d priori reasoning, or form a judgment from what has
fallen under my own observation, I am alike clear in my con-
viction that the measure is unwise and impolitia But I rest
my objection upon a single point I do not pretend to draw a
c<>mparison between the European schools and our own as
training institutions in the languages and other preparatory
studies for admission to college. I do not under-estimate the
advantages of acquiring a familiar knowledge of other modem
languages, or the superior facility of doing this in the countries
where such languages are the vernacular.

I am ready to go farther and assume that such of our
young men as are able to withstand the temptations and escape
the pitfalls which are in the way of every young man who is
removed from home influences, and the restraints which the
liabits of society exert over him, easily acquires broad and
Hiberal views of the world, and loses much of the narrow and
aigid habits of thought which home education is apt to foster,
till these are worn off by the discipline of later life. And I
am willing to confess to an attainment, by many of these, of an
»ease and self assurance, which are often the fruits of intelligent
foreign travel. But these, after all, are not in themselves
(education. They may be the fruits of culture, which are more
Hseeming than real, so far as intellectual development is con*
(cemed.

I understand your enquiry relates to such youth as are pass-
ing through the stages of a proper school education, not
embracing that of the university or professional school My
remarks, therefore, do not relate to these latter classes. What,
then, is the purpose and object of educating the youth of a
•country, and especially of a country like ours? It is not
merely to gain the rudiments of useful book knowledge, or to
learn how to use them. It is not the development and training
of the higher faculties, alone, at which it ought to aim. These
are essential to a proper school education, wherever it is pur-

EDUCATION ABEOAD. 25

sued. But there is something more to be considered than the
mere amount of what one gets from books, or recitations. The
adaptation of what a young man acquires to the wants and
needs of his after life is of more importance than the quantity
of scholastic learning he attaina The student, in a professional
school, pursues the studies which he expects to apply in the
• business of actual life, rather than what suits his taste, or fits
him to shine in society. And the same principle commends
itself to the good sense of every man who is educating his
children with a view to the places they are to fill upon the
stage of action.

Much of what one has to make use of, in connection with
what he gets at school, is acquired, unconsciously, from what
he sees and hears before he learns to judge of its relative
value or importance. This part of his education underlies
what he gains by the aid of masters, and grows up with it,
shaping his habits of thought, and supplementing the teaching
of the schools. Its practical results are seen in the peculiar
traits of language and manners which distinguish families
and neighborhoods from each other, though substantially alike
in other respects, and enter into the characteristics of the very-
nationality of different States ; it is confined to no rank or con-
dition in life, and helps to form that body of notions which
serve the oflSce of popular instincts. This part of a man's
education he imbibes, if ever, while he is young, by associa-
tion with others, his equals as well as his superiors. And one
great objection to sending a boy abroad to get his school educa-
tion is, that he either fails to receive this practical training in
incipient citizenship altogether, or receives one that unfits him
for the exigencies and experiences of the career which is open to
him as' an American. To my mind this is a most serious objec-
tion to educating American boys and young men in any of the
schools of Europe. Theoretically considered alone, it is strong
enough, but so many practical illustrations of the working of
the system have fallen under my own observations, that to my
mind the objection is insurmountable. I waive the moral
aspect of the theory, and yield, for the purpose of the argument,
to any supposed superior processes of teaching which are to be
learned in schools. I have seen young men come home from

26 EDUCATION ABEOAD.

»

these schools at the age of eighteen to twenty -one or two years,
who have found themselves so utterly at fault in everything
that relates to the inner and social life of their own country, its
institutions, laws, government, and the practical things of life
which every bright and intelligent American young man has
become familiar with, by simply living among them, that they
found they had been gaining knowledge ^t the expense of what
answers, in many respects, to common sense. I have in mind
a most excellent, pure-minded, youbg man, some twenty-two
years of age, whom I knew in one of our professional schools.
His father, a man of education and culture, took him at an
early age, with his family, to Europe, placing him at first class
schools and institutions in France and Germany for many years,
giving him as good an education as these could supply. His
culture was high, and his attainments large. He had come
back to complete his education here to fit him for a profession
which he proposed to follow. He had all the accomplishments
which good masters could impart to him, and, so far as moral
and intellectual training went, his education was really of a
high order. But he knew nothing of his own country, her
laws, habits or institutions, and I have heard him, again and
again, deplore the mistake he had made in having lost what he
found so many of his companions and associates seemed to pos-
sess intuitively, although so greatly his inferiors in learning and
classical attainment. It placed an almost impassable gulf
between him and them upon every thing relating to public
policy and the topics which were engaging the public attention.
Nor was it easy to bridge over this or bring his habits of
thought into harmony with those around him. He had been
indoctrinated in every thing that could make him a general
scholar, but lacked the practical qualities of an American
citizen.

This elementary training of which I have spoken draws no
little of its force and effect from placing boys, of all classes, in
free communication with each other in our common schools,
and is felt in the class associations of our colleges. But by that
time, a young man is ready to avail himself of the advantages
of foreign schools and universities without danger of losing the
instincts of home and country, and my judgment is altogether

EDUCATION ABROAD. 27

in favor of a step like that for the purpose of completing his
preparatory course of education. But it is not to such a class,
as I understand it, that your inquiry relates.

Very truly yours, &c.,

EMOEY WASHBTJEN,

Ex'Qov, of Mass, and Prof, Harvard Law School,

Dbpabtmbnt op Public Instbuction, )
Des MoineSy lowa^ April 14, 1873. j

Dear ISir, — The sentiments expressed in your paper on the
question of educating American youth abroad, meet my hearty
approval. In my judgment, thei American schools of the pres-
ent, and American society, are the best in the world for edu-
cating American youth, and preparing them for American citi-
zenship. If they are sent abroad to study, it should not be
until they have received thorough and liberal training at home.
Yours truly, ALONZO ABERNETHY,

State Superintendent of Schools,

Office of Sup't of Public Instruction, )
Madison, Wisconsin, April 15, 1873. J

Dear Sir, — I feel a deep interest in the question of the edu-
cation of our American youth in foreign countries, and am very
glad that you are calling the attention of the public to it

I firmly believe that it is detrimental to our boys and girls
to be trained in European schools during the formative period
of their character. American education means an education in
American ideas, thoughts, principles, lifa Such an education
can be imparted only in our midst

The methods, aims and very atmosphere of foreign schools
differ iii toto from ours. We aim to make our scholars self-
reliant, independent, and at the same time obedient to law.
We train them from the lowest primary to the highest class in
the High School, in self-government /or self-government For-
eign schools are pervaded with the distinctions of rank, and
obsequiousness and servility toward the ruling classes are per-
sistently taught

28 EDUCATION ABROAD.

I know to some extent the opinions of leading German edu-
cators among us, as to the relative merits of German and Amer-
ican schools, and while they have a just pride in the exalted
position the schools of the Fatherland have won, and can see
many defects in our own public schools, they are emphatic in
saying, " American schools in processes and results are the best
for American children."

From considerations of a moral, social and political nature,
I should thiuk American parents would be deterred from
removing their children out of the natural, wholesome, Chris-
tian influences of American society. I hope the growing evil
may be promptly arrested.

After the character has been formed, and the best culture
among us been obtained, our youth may seek and enjoy with
comparative safety the higher culture those foreign countries
afford. Very truly yours,

SAMUEL FALLOWS,
State Superintendent of Schools.

Thb Univbrsfty of Minnesota, )
April 16, 1873. J

Hon, and Dear /Sir, — I have held your letter, hoping to find

opportunity for replying at length, but find myself shut up to

giving you a mere bulletin.

I have had some experience in the matter of which you write.

You are entirely correct The faahion — and it has become a

fashion — is a most useless and vicious one. Fortunately it is

one chiefly followed by snobs, whose children would only be

dead weight in our American schools and coUegea But for

fear it may go further, I hope you will give it a coup de grace in

your proposed writing,

I am very truly yours,

WM. W. FOLWELL,

President of the State University.

Columbus, Ohio, April 16, 1873.
My Dear Sir, — ^I fully endorse your earnest protest against
the practicCxof sending American youth abroad for an educa*
tion. You are doing a valuable service in calling public atteu*

EDUCATION ABEOAD. 29

tion to the folly and danger of this feshion. The facts you so
clearly and boldly state are attested by the sad experience of
hundreds of American families. I do not see how any wise
American parent can think of giving a chUd an European edtl-
cation at so great a risk. The fact that European society is
monarchical in its usages and spirit, is sufficient evidence that
it cannot be favorable to the development of a true republican
character ; and the very refinement and glamour of its immo-
rality and vices have a seductive and pernicious influence on
American children, especially those who have wealthy parents.
There is also no doubt that American schools give a better
preparation for American life and duties than the schools of
Europe, notwithstanding the admitted superiority of the latter
in several important particulars. The American school is per-
vaded by the earnest spirit of American life and morals, and
what it lacks in linguistic and aesthetic culture is more than
made good by its intellectual vigor, practical bearing,, and
healthful incentives. It is admitted that Europe offers superior
advantages to young persons of education and established char-
acter, who may wish to pursue certain special studies, but we
hope the time may soon come when no American will find it
necessary to go abroad for such scholastic advantages.
Very truly yours,

E. E. WHITE,

Ex' Superintendent of Schools of Ohio,

Hartford, April 16, 1873.
My Dear Mr. Northrop, — ^I have long wanted and waited to
hear such a clear- voiced utterance as you have given touching
the education of our children in Europe. You have covered
the ground so fully that little remains for me to add, excepting
my testimony. The drift of the influences abroad tends to
un- Americanize our youth, to teach them to despise their own
land, to over-estimate the surface polish of Europe, and to
under-rate the sturdy simplicity of an earlier national character.
The American system for Americans is the true idea ; and hap-
pily, with the great attractions which we have been able to offer
to foreigners, we have had brought to us the best that Europe

30 EDUCATION ABBOAD.

had to give. I believe in travel for those who have ' ended
their regular studies; but I believe that the education of boys
and girls abroad rears up a hybrid class, neither Europeans nor
Americans, ill adapted to practical duties in either hemisphere.*
But all this you hare weU said, and I can only add my
endorsement of your article, and my hope that we shall soon
get away from the infatuation of the present time, with its
dream that our sons and daughters can be better reared for
their own home labors amid the scenes of a foreign and differ-
ent, and, in many things, adverse civilization.

Faithfully yours, W. L. GAGE.

Obeblik College, Ohio, )
April 18, 1873. J

Bear Sir, — ^In your article on the question of educating
American youth abroad, the views expressed harmonize
entirely with my own convictions.

As my life has been spent in the newer portions of the coun-
try, with the opportunity of only a few months' travel in
Europe, of course my direct observation of the effect of for-
eign education upon American youth has been quite limited,
and my opinion must be regarded as mostly a theoretical one.
But whatever may be said in behalf of the thoroughness of
German schools, it is self-evident that a boy spending ten years
of his life abroad, at that period when he is most impressible,
will lose to a great extent that unconscious tuition so essen-
tial to his general culture, and which furnishes him with so
large a part of the practical knowledge which fits him for life.
This loss can never be made good to him ; European ideas and
culture will not serve his purpose. They rather put the young
man out of adjustment with American society, and so cripple
him for his life work.

To speak of positively harmful influences, I cannot but
think that the social habits of Europe are less desirable and
safe than those of the better portion of Amierican society ; and
that the power of the religious sentiment and of religious wor-

* His long residence in Gennany and familiar acquaintance with American
students abroad give special value to the opinions of Mr. Grage.

EDUCATION ABROAD. 81

ship, even in Protestant Germany, is less effective, less likely
to lead to rational conviction and practical results, than in our
own country.

Except in the way of special training, in philology and in
art, and possibly in some branches of science, I have no doubt
that our home education is much the more effective and whole-
some. I am glad that you are calling public attention to this
question. Very truly yours,

JAMES H. FAIECHILD,

President of Oberlin College.

MiDDLEBURY COLLEGE, )

MiddUbury, Vt, April 18, 1873. J
Dear Sir, — There are certain rare cases in which foreign
study may be desirable ; cases of students already somewhat
ripe in education and character, craving more perfect culture in
higher philology or in specialties of art or science. Such
exceptional cases will doubtless find completer apparatus and
opportunity of higher attainment in some of the European uni-
versities ; and some finish of facility in the modern tongues
will be gathered by the way. But for common aims, and espe-
cially for theological purposes, I think the advantages of for-
eign study have been greatly over-estimated.

In the earlier stages of education, our own schools and col-
leges are safer and every way to be preferred, in my estima-
tion, for American youth seeking practical training, and priz-
ing good uses and solid attainments above modish manners and
Parisian French. In a thousand ways a child bred abroad
becomes foreign in thought and feeling. Unconsciously a fool-
ish and hurtful taint of foreign airs and spirit gets ingrained
and sets him out of sympathy with our simple republican life.
And unless attended by watchful family care, even worse and
deeper damage is to be apprehended.

Very truly yours, H. D. KITCHEL,

President of Middlebury College,

82 EDUCATION ABBOAD.

ITalamazoOj Mich., April 19, 1873.

My Dear Sir, — The views you have expressed respecting the
education of American children in Europe seem to me timely
and just. If instances had not come to my knowledge, I
should think it. hardly possible for intelligent men and women
to send their children, from eight to eighteen years old, to be
educated in France or Germany or Italy. But even intelli-
gent persons sometimes do foolish things, if fashion calls for
them.

The subject is worthy of a full discussion, and I hope you
will so present it as to compel the attention of our fellow-citi-
zens generally. I am always glad when I hear of any young
man, of suitable age and present attainments, deciding to pur-
sue his studies under the instruction of those German or French
teachers who have given their lives to special departments of
learning. For such opportunities for study, added to what
they have enjoyed at home, cannot fail to give breadth to the
mind, and render its scholarship more generoua But the Ger-
man or French mind is not itself any broader than the Ameri-
can. Is it as broad ? That which has great value as a com-
plement may have less value in itself than that of which it is
the fitting complement. To substitute education abroad for
education at home, is to lose some of the best elements of an
education.

Have you not observed that German and French are better
taught in our schools by a really competent American than by
a native French or German? The latter may know more con-
cerning the language he teaches; but ordinarily he has less
tact in teaching Americans. For a similar reason, children
placed exclusively under the care of foreign teachers must, in
general, suffer some disadvantage. Their education is likely
to have less practical value.

Yours truly, KENDALL BEOOKS,

President Kalamazoo College.

University op Vermont, )
Burlington, April 20th, 1873. J

Dear Sir, — I have very strong convictions on the subject

which you have taken in hand. My attention was called to it

EDUCATION ABBOAD. 83

nearly twenty years ago by the accident of my becoming ac-
quainted with a young American of distinguished name and
lineage, who had just completed his education in Europe. The
youth was by no means destitute of parts ; he had, it is true,
the disadvantage of being heir to wealth and social position in
a country in which this species of " nobility " imposes no tradi-
tional " obligations," but he was not altogether without ambi-
tion ; he was returning to engage in active pursuits as an
American citizen and man of business ; but I was at once struck
with his total unfitness, in discipline, in habits, in acquired
knowledge, especially knowledge of mankind, to compete with
the average young man of my acquaintance, iii the practical
business of American life. I had just come from his native
land, which he had not seen for many years : great events were
taking place at that very hour in which every intelligent
American was absorbingly interested : he had not a question to
ask or a remark to make which indicated that he ever had a
thought about his own country : his enthusiasm was all ex-
pended upon the glories of German life, and the letters of
Madame de S^vignd My involuntary prophecy respecting
him has been fulfilled. In spite of the 'splendid opportunities
which hie position opened to him, he has never risen above
some secretaryship in a mercantile company. I mention this
case not as being decisive of the question, but to show you that
my opinions are not new. From that day to this, I have
watched this matter only to find my first impressions confirmed ;
to be more and more convinced that an American boy edu- '
cated abroad, enters upon the work of life under great disad-
vantages.

The presumption is obviously in favor of a child's being
educated in his own country, trained in the language which he
is to use, subjected to the moulding influence of the ideas,
modes of thought, traditions, institutions of the race to which he
belongs, dyed in the national sentiments of his own people —
unless, indeed, he is to be started out into life with the intima-
tion that these are all things to be ashamed of and disowned.
This degree of recreancy no class of the American people have
reached as yet, though what the next generation may come to,
if so many of them are to be educated in Europe, it is mortify-

84 EDUCATION ABfeOAD.

ing to imagine. What, then, are the considerations which pre-
vail in the minds of intelligent and patriotic Americans, in favor
of a. foreign education for their children? I can think of but
two which are of weight ; first, that the fiindamentals of educa-
tion, which are the same everywhere and for all, are better
taught in European than in • American schools : or secondly,
that the opportunity of acquiring foreign languages, and other
accomplishments, such as music and art-culture, counterbalance
any disadvantage in this respect Now I do not accede to the
first position. I do not believe that what we call the ** ordinary
branches" of a rudimentary education are more thoroughly
taught in the schools of France and Germany than in our
better, I do not say best, class of schools. When Guyot tells us
how he taught geography in Switzerland, we must not suppose
that every Swiss teacher is a Guyot I speak from some ob-
servation of the schools in Switzerland and Germany, when I
say that a good American public school brings out better results
in the way of character, of aptitude for work, of versatility —
and what is an education for, but to develop character, and to
fit for the work of life ? — than an average German or Swiss
school. The foreign teacher is quite likely to have more learn-
ing, but his tact, his teaching power, his good sense, and re-
spectability as a man, are likely to be far less. Americans
ought to get at least a suspicion of this from the well-known
fact that it is next to impossible to find a foreign teacher who
can manage a class of American boys in a» High School or
College. If it is replied that what these foreigners lack is not
ability, but a knowledge of the peculiarities of American boys,
I answer, exactly so, and a fatal lack to them it is. American
boys have their peculiarities, and they ought to have : Ameri-
can men have theirs : American life and society are diflFerent
frdm German or French life and society. And a great lack it
would be to an American to grow up without getting, through
American schools, from American teachers, and in every other
possible way, that knowledge of Americans on which depends
more than half his success in any calling whatsoever.

As to the second point, valuable as is the ability to speak
two or three languages, the accomplishment is dearly purchased
when we sacrifice for it the influences of home and country.

EDUCATION ABROAD. 85

•

and more than all, of religion, as in most instances we must,
during the formative, critical years of boyhood. For these
years that are most valuable in the study of foreign languages,
are the very years in which almost all other useful, noble and
beautiful things must be learned, if ever. The parent has to
consider whether, for the sake of French and German, Music
and Art, or so much of them as a young boy can acquire abroad,
and cannot acquire at homcyrit is worth while to have him
grow up deficient in home attachment and love of country ;
weak in his sympathy with American ideas and institutions ;
quite likely with a vacuum in his heart where religious princi-
ples should be rooted and growing ; and in danger of being
unsettled for life.

As regards the supposed benefits of foreign travel, I look
upon it as nothing short of a calamity to any one to have made
the tour of Europe whUe a mere child. I would not accept
such an opportunity for my own children. To gaze upon the
wonders and beauties of the world with the vacant stare of
childhood, is to forego half the impression they would other-
wise make Upon the mature man. What is more provoking
than the unimpressibility of young people in presence of great
events and sublime objects? Listen to the flippancy with
which young misses, just fi^m Europe, speak of the grandest
things that God or man has made ! What have they got from
the grand tour, but such a superficial familiarity with the
world's wonders as takes the bloom off their enthusiasm for-
ever?

There is a time in the progress of mental development when
foreign travel, and even a limited residence abroad, will prove
of the highest value to a young man, especially to an American.
None need more than he to see foreign countries, arts, monu-
ments, institutions ; to learn respect for other things than those
which he intelligently prefers, and to have his patriotism, even,
liberalized by the conviction that " God had a hand in making
other countries beside his own." But the time for this is not
until his character has attained some maturity. When he has
learned the best that the schools and universities of his native
land can teach him, when he has acquired some power of ob-
servation and reflection, then let him travel in foreign lands
and study in foreign universities.

86 EDUCATION ABKOAD.

In what I have said thus far, I have had very little reference
to American girls. When we speak of the education of girls,
a totally diflFerent meaning glides into the very word education.
To educate a boy means to give fibre and tone to his mental
powers, to train him into a healthy, vigorous mental and moral
condition. To educate a girl means to furnish her with an
outfit of accomplishments* So long as this conception of a
girl's education satisfies us, it makes no very great diflferetice
whether she be educated at home or abroad. If French, Music
and Art are to be the stuff, and not merely the fringes of her
education, she will without doubt be better served in Europe
than at home. By all means let her go. She cannot possibly
learn less of everything that goes to make up a. strong, helpful,
sweet-toned, fuU-souled womanly character, than she would
learn in the schools at home, created and patronized by the
class to which she belongs. I only hope she will get a French
husband and stay in France. The American matron ought to
be an educated American woman.

Very truly yours,

M. H. BUCKHAM,

President University of Vermont

MAietiEtTA College, )
May Ut, 1873. J

My Dear Sir, — ^I am very glad that you are calling attention
to the matter of sending American boys and girls to Europe for
their education. Your condemnation of the practice is none too
severe. The disadvantages far exceed the advantages. Gen-
tlemen who have sent their sons to Europe and kept them there
a number of yeai^ have assured me that they were on their
return far behind other lads of their own age, who had been in
attendance upon our American schools. One gentleman in
particular "was very decided in his condemnation of European
schools for American boys. His sons had learned much which
should not have been learned, and had fallen behind in the es-
sentials of fe good education. He declared emphatically that
this sending boys to Europe for an education was a "humbug."

You class it among the fashionable follies of the day, and feel
assured that experience and a wiser self-respect will rectify it

EDUCATION ABROAD. 87

when the comparative results of the two systems come to be
better understood. I confess that I am not so sanguine.
Fashion has not a little to do with education. Multitudes of
people will send their children to a poor school that is expen-
sive, in preference to one that is thorough and good but inex-
pensive. They will send their children at heavy cost to distant
parts of the country for an education that could be had at home,
or in their own region, at a very moderate expense. The same
reasons influence parents to send their children to Europe.

But some act from higher and wiser motives, and they will
heed such suggestions as you are making. Perhaps the tide is
already turning among the more intelligent of our people. If
there is anything in the European methods of education which
is superior to our own, it can be engrafted upon ours. For
American boys, I have no doubt the American methods are
better than the German or French or English. But we may
introduce all improvements which are found to exist elsewhere,
still keeping the stock or basis substantially American.

Very sincerely yours,

I. W. ANDEEWS,

President of Marietta College,

Yale Collbge, )

New Baven^ Conn,^ May 3, 1873. j

Dear Sir, — ^The views expressed by yourself in the communi-
cation which you were so kind as to send me are such as I have
long entertained. I have known a few young persons who
have received an excellent education abroad ; better far than
they would have obtained at home, but these were exceptional

cases.

Very respectfully,

K PORTER,

President of Yale College.

Office of Board of Education, \
Chicago, lU,, May 9, 1873. J

Sir, — ^The advantages of foreign study, however great, can

not outweigh the importance of the "American idea," nor atone

for the loss of a true republican spirit. The average pupil sent

38 EDUCATION ABROAD.

by parents abroad for his education is poorly prepared to value
institutions at their real worth, and is apt to be dazzled by " the
glitter of royalty." The value of the higher schools of the Old
World is unquestioned, but such should be visited only by those
whose characters are already moulded and whose judgment is
more powerful than the imagination. There is little danger
that those who have attained the education necessary for ad-
mission to the German universities wUl ever become un- Ameri-
canized.

There is another view which has much weight in my mind.
The withdrawal of the youth of wealth and refinement from
our own seminaries and colleges takes away a patronage essen-
tial to their elevation. Very many of our best meaning colleges
in the west are unable to realize their ideal because eastern insti-
tutions hold out more glittering inducements, and thus draw
away the wealth and the culture of the west into support of eas-
tern colleges. So long as many of the leaders in society find
nothing at home good enough for them, home institutions will
be starvelings. If we can improve the demand for home culture
we shall certainly improve the supply, of which there is great
need. Very truly yours,

J. L. PICKAED,

Superintendent of Schools.

Williams College, \
WiUiafnatown^ May 9, 1873. J

Dear Sir^ — I have read with much interest your remarks on
the question, " Should American youth be educated abroad ?"
The advantages of foreign travel are very great, when young
men have learned what to observe and how to observe. And
for some time to come, our students will find superior advan-
tages in some departments of learning in foreign universities,
when they know enough of their own country to judge fairly
of such advantages, as well as of the institutions and customs
of the countries which they visit But we do not have evidence
of such superiority of any foreign schools, as to compensate for
the loss which must come to the student from absence from his
own country during the most important period of his general
^ucatioiL

EDUCATION ABROAD. 39

We must do what we can to make our schools of every grade
worthy of the patronage of our people, and those who are
guides and advisers in matters of education must do what they
can to secure for the young men and women of America, first
of all, the advantages of a thorough training in the schools of
their own country.

Very truly yours,

P. A. CHADBOUENE,

President of Williams College.

Trinity College, )
JIartford, May 10, 1873. J

My Dear Sir, — I would say in reply to your note of inquiry,
that I have long considered the question of sending our young
men abroad for education. The education which a boy receives
at the Public Schools where he lives with an assistant Master
who stands to him in loco parentis, is surrounded with the strong-
est moral safeguards, and is therefore perhaps the least objec-
tionable.

The professional education sought by young men of mature
years, who go abroad with an earnest purpose, and who feel
that their whole future — their fortune and their feme— depend
directly on the use they make of their time and opportunities, is
less environed with dangers than some other modes of foreign
culture. Besides, the rapid advance of our own schools, scienti-
fic and professional, is every day diminishing the need, and will
ere long take away the motive and excuse for resorting to for-
eign universities for special education.

The real difficulty and peril in this matter attach to what is
known and recognised as liberal edttcation, lying intermediate
between the Public School and the Professional School

This danger arises (1) from the impressionable character of
the age at which this education is pursued, and (2) from the
absence of salutary restraints. It is an age when the sensual ap-
petites are in great force, when the love of pleasure is intense,
when experience is yet immature, and moral principle is not yet
strengthened into a habit of steady self-control. The moral
perils which young men pursuing in foreign countries studies
of this class must encounter, are not imaginary, for they have

40 EDUCATION ABROAD.

written their baneful signatures on the lives of not a few of our
American youth.

But these dangers of a foreign education are greatly enhanced
by the fact that the restraints which would shield a young man
from temptation are few and feeble in comparison with what
they would be in his own country. But my strongest objec-
tion to the liberal education which is to be acquired abroad is
yet to be stated. It arises from the fact that a young man is
now at the most plastic period of his life. The social and politi-
cal life by which he is surrounded make an indelible impres-
sion upon him. They insensibly interpenetrate with their
subtle force his whole nature, and mould his tastes and sympa-
thies into harmony with his surroundings. He is thrown out
of gear with the social and political machinery of his native
country. He returns to it with sympathies chilled. He is
disposed, insensibly it may be, to criticise and compara His
patriotism is somewhat dulled. His personality as an element
of the life-force of the nation has lost somewhat of its intensity.
He will neither be quite so happy nor quite so useful as he
would have been if his nature had been developed by the spirit
and the institutions of his own country. There may be in-
stances of a contrary effect, but I have here stated what must
be from the nature of the case the general tendency.

For a young American to go abroad to pursue special studies,
to gain general culture, to profit by travel, after he has gradua-
ted at one of our colleges, presents a widely different case, and is
not open to the objections just stated. This presents a justly
prized opportunity which, if rightly used, can hardly fail to
secure great and substantial good without bringing with it
countervailing evil. ^

I remain, my dear sir, very truly yours,

A JACKSON,

President of Trinity College.

Columbia College, New Yobk, )
Preaidenfa Hoom, May 13^A, 1873. )

Dear Sir, — The subject is an impoiiant one in severtil re-
spects. In the first place, it is important from the point of
view of simple economy. You have correctly remarked that

EDUCATION ABROAD. 41

the costliness of the foreign education of their children is to
many parents a recommendation rather than a discouragement
To them as individuals, it is a matter of no concern where they
expend their money ; but they prefer to expend it in ways
which imply the possession of that kind of social superiority
which wealth, or the reputation of wealth, is supposed to be-
stow. But when, by the concurrent action of many individuals,
with or without concert, a large amount of money is annually
withdrawn from the country, to be expended upon any given
object elsewhere, it becomes a matter of public concernment to
ascertain whether the benefit secured is a fair equivalent for
the outlay. Should this not appear to be the case, and should
it be further evident that, as a consequence of thie withdrawal
of such considerable sums, the whole country is made to suffer
in the important interests which such withdrawal effects, the
case becomes sufficiently serious to occupy the attention of the
thoughtful, and to justify effort to remedy the evil, or to arrest
its growth.

But the economical aspect of the present question is of trivial
consequence in comparison with the results, in the formation of
character, of the influences, moral, social and even political, as
well as purely scholastic, to which the youth of our country
must be for some years exposed, in case they are sent for their
early education to the schools of France and Germany. These
influences, except the scholastic, are all of them unfavorable to
the formation of principles or the development of ideas, in har-
mony with those which are most carefully cherished among us.
They are, therefore, always sources of danger to those who are
subjected to them at a period of life when character is most
plastic ; and they may be to many the occasion of their moral
ruin. Nothing can altogether justify indifference to risks of
this kind, or careless defiance of them. Nothing can plausibly
excuse them, unless it be the assurance that in the advantages
held out for intellectual and aesthetic culture, the foreign
schools are superior to ours to a degree which renders compari-
son ridiculous.

Is, this the case ? No one exactly believes it ; and whether
it is true or not, the American parents who resort to foreign
countries for the education of their children, or who send their

42 EDUCATION ABROAD.

children abroad to- be educated away from their families, very
rarely indeed avail themselves of the national schools, to which
the imputed merit, if it exists anywhere, belongs ; but patronize
rather by preference private teachers or private institutions, es-
tablished expressly or mainly to live on this foreign patronage,
offering no guaranty for their thoroughness, aiming rather to
content than to improve their pupils, and prosecuting educa-
tion as a business rather than as a profession. This being the
truth, it is a question which it would hardly pay to discuss
anew, whether the Prussian educational system has or has not
at the present time that decided superiority to other systems of
national education which was once conceded to it It is not
the Prussian system which Americans seek in Prussia. We
may therefore assert without danger of contradiction — without
danger at least of contradiction from the experienced — ^that as
a rule the youth of America who are sent to Germany for their
early education, not only do not find there scholastic advantages
superior to those which they leave behind them at home, but
often put up with such as are greatly inferior.

Notwithstanding this, I have to confess that, until within the
past few years, I have been all my life rather disposed to favor
the residence abroad, where circumstances would allow, during
a part at least of the period allotted to education, of families
having young children, on the ground that in no other way
can foreign languages be learned rapidly and thoroughly at the
same time ; and that at no other period of life can the proper
pronunciation of such languages be perfectly learned at all. In
the present age, some acquaintance with the leading languages
of Europe is indispensable to every scholar, and even to every
man of business. In regard to two or three of these languages,
the acquaintance should amount to familiarity — such familiarity
as may enable its possessor to employ them freely in written
and even in oral communications with others. The last fifty
years has brought about a great change in this respect The
improvement of the facilities of transportation, and the accelera-
tion of the rapidity of movement both by land and by sea, have
stimulated travel to a degree which surpasses all precedent, and
which brings people of different nationalities and different
tongues into contact by multitudes, every day. The enlighten-

EDUCATION ABROAD. 48

ment of the world haa in like manner greatly advanced, and
the volume of publication in all languages through the press
has increased many fold. The intermingling of peoples by mi-
gration from country to country has been going on more and
more actively every year during the same period. It is no
longer possible for a 'man who is master of only a single lan-
guage, either to keep up with the progress of published thought,
or altogether to escape liability to embarrassment in the trans-
action of the ordinary business of lifa Once it was the man
who travelled only who was embarrassed by the want of facility
of communication. Now, the embarrassment is brought to
every door.

It seemed to me till recently that residence in a foreign coun-
try for a year or two in early life would be an infallible means
of making a child as familiar with the language of that country
as he is already with his own, and this without any conscious
eflFort So very important an acquisition seemed to me sufficient
to justify some sacrifices and some expense. Observation, how-
ever, has led me to doubt whether the desirable object sought
is secured by the means proposed, either as rapidly or as effect-
ually as I had believed. When children reside with their
parents abroad, they will infallibly converse together, if there
are several, in their vernacular tongue ; and it is difficult also
to enforce the rule that older members of the family shall not
indulge them in the same way. When this is in the least
allowed, they do not take willingly to the foreign language, and
their progress is unsatisfactory. When children, on the other
hand, are separated from their families, they are usually placed
in some one of the private schools of which I have spoken
above, instituted for the accommodation of pupils of their own
nationality, and usually filled with such. In one point of view
it may seem advantageous that the companions of a child's
early years shall be those of his own kindred and people, brought
up in infancy under the same influences, inspired by the same
dawning sentiments, animated by the same likes and dislikes
as his. It may seem also an advantage, and may prove in some
instances to be a real one, that the childish friendships formed
at school shall not abruptly perish with the close of school life,
as must usually be the case when the homes of school-mates

44 EDUCATION ABROAD.

are in diflFerent hemispheres, but shall survive and ripen and
become in later life sources, to those who cherish them, of much
happiness of the kind which springs from the intermingling of
sympathies. But these are advantages which we do not go
abroad, or send our children abroad, to find ; and if we encoun-
ter them there, we encounter them by a force of circumstances
which makes them directly antagonistic to the objects which
we do seek. For the children of the same nationality who
meet in a foreign boarding school, form a little community of
their own, having a common language which they encourage
each other to use ; and thus residence in the German boarding
school is too commonly as unfavorable as residence in the
domestic circle to the acquisition of foreign tongues by Ameri-
can children, placed for their education in the countries in
which those tongues are spoken. They will acquire them of
course, at last ; but the process is by no means as rapid or as
satisfactory as parents anticipate.

As for the scholastic culture which these schools furnish, it
has no uniformity of quality. None of them attempt to put
into force the vigorous methods of the public schools ; and they
differ doubtless greatly among themselves ; but I have heard
very few of them spoken of by American parents in terms of
unqualified praise. The testimony on the other hand is gener-
ally depreciatory. It appears therefore to me that neither the
general object of mental culture nor the special object of the
acquisition of tongues can be secured by the children of
American parents by residence abroad more effectually than
they can by remaining at homa And while coming to this
conclusion, I have been led to take note of what I had not so
carefully considered before, the moral influences which sur-
round the young in the cities and schools of France and Ger-
many, and which are such as, on several accounts, we ought to
deprecate. You have already pointed these out so forcibly that
I need hardly say more than to record my entire acquiescence
in the justice of your remarks upon thisgravely important head.
The levity with which sacred subjects are referred to in the
social life of the continent, the sceptical tone which pervades
so much of the conversation and of the ephemeral literature of
those peoples, are enough to blight the spirit of reverence ia

EDUCATION ABROAD. 45

any young bosom in the bud, and to neutralize the e^ectof the
most careful religious teaching imparted during the earlier
period of infancy. The looseness of manners and of morals of
which, in the large towns, the young see much and read more,
saps the foundation of honorable principle, and prepares the
youth to seek enjoyment in the gratification of his propensities
rather than in the cultivation of the nobler capacities of his na-
ture. The abject deference to rank, and the universal and
willing acquiescence in the existence of those artificial social
inequalities which are the inheritance and the surviving evi^
dence of a period when might made right, predispose the
youthful mind not to tolerate merely but to prefer those politi-
cal institutions which are most widely contrasted with our own.
And finally, the prevalence every where on the continent,
among the classes assuming to be cultured, of a contempt,
which disdains even the affectation of concealment, for America
and for everything American, cannot fail, when long continued,
to humble and even at length to destroy the feeling of honor-
able pride which the young American citizen should be taught
to entertain, and which on so many accounts he has a right to
entertain, for the land of his nativity.

On all accounts, therefore, it is my matured opinion that the
advantages of mental or moral culture supposed by many to
be secured by sending young people from the United States to
the continent of Europe to be educated, are in the main illusory;
and that, if there are any which are not so, they are not sufficient
to jifford an adequate compensation for the possible dangers and
positive moral evUs which must inevitably accompany them.

I am, sir, very sincerely yours,

F. A. P. BAENAED,

President Columbia College,

CoLLEQE OP New Jersey, )
Princeton^ JV, e/i, April 8, 1873. f

My Dear Sir, — I agree with you as to continental education.
The gymnasia of Germany are certainly superior to the
American schools out of New England. But we might have
an American education far better than the German for Ameri-
cans. JAMES McCOSH,

President College of New Jersey.

46 EDUCATION ABBOAD.

Jtilesj Mich,j April 12, 1873.

Dear Sir : — ^For years it has been a favorite theory of mine
that a youth should be educated mainly where his field of labor
is likely to be. So far, indeed, have I been disposed to carry
this, as to hold that a Western man may be best tmined in
Western schools for work in the West ; and vice versa. " We
go to Europe to be Americanized," says Emerson. This may
be true of the man, but can hardly be true of the susceptible
and growing boy. The difference in the applications of educa-
tional philosophy, in the qualifications of teachers, in school
economy, and other means of mental discipline — as to some of
which the European schools seem unquestionably superior to
ours — can hardly be great enough to compensate for the moral
and political dangers you have exposed so effectively ; the in-
formation imparted by foreign schools must all be accessible in
our later text-books and other literature; and the less said
about the social influences brought to bear upon the young
child in many places abroad, the better. Our society has no
sadder sight than a young man or woman, native-born or of
American parents, but denationalized, listless, unhappy, unfitted
by foreign training to grapple with the problems of republican
life, and sighing for the caste distinctions and monarchical in-
stitutions made congenial to him in childhot)d by the geniris loci.
Such a phenomenon is becoming quite too common; but I
trust that, through your efforts, with the co-operation you pro-
cure, a public sentiment may be created that shall make an
exotic of this description a rare one indeed.

Very respectfully and truly yours,

HENEY A. FOED,

JEd. Michigan Teacher.

St, Louis^ April 22, 1873.

Dear Sir^ — I very cordially agree with the views presented
in your printed article on ** European education" for. our young
men. Your presentation of the subject is just and discriminat-
ing, and I think you accord to the German methods and insti-
tutions all (perhaps more than all) they can rightfully claim.

EDUCATION ABROAD. 47

My opinioij, such as it is, has been formed from two visits to
Europe and from personal knowledge of a large number of
instances in which the experiment of sending boys and young
men abroad for education has been tried. As a rule, it is a
signal failure.

I remain yours truly,

W. a ELIOT,

President Washington Unive7'siiy.

Staunton^ Viz., May 16, 1873.

Dear Sir, — The education of a boy in a foreign country, un-
less his parents make it their home for the time being, is in
my judgment productive of more evil than good. In the period
of childhood and early youth nothing can take the place of
one's home, and native country, and native language. These
give a definite stamp to the character and model of thought,
which furnish a fixed standard of comparison so necessary in
all subsequent acquisitions. The greatest benefit to be derived
from study in a foreign country is, I think, when one has fin-
ished his collegiate and professional education at home.

Yours very truly,

B. SEAES,
Agent of the Peabody Educational Fund,

Akhebst College, )
May 20, 1873. J

Dear Sir, — ^You have done a much needed service to par-
ents and children in our country, and to the country itself, in
calling public attention to the' evils and dangers attending the
fashionable folly of sending boys and girls to foreign boarding
schools. And you have done it wisely and well. Your article
meets my entire and hearty approval. While admitting all the
real excellencies and advantages of the German system of edu-
cation for Germans who pursue it entire, and of parts of it for
more advanced American students who are prepared to take
up those parts with just discrimination, you show its want of
adaptation to the mental, moral, social and religious wants of

48 EDUCATION ABROAD.

our boys and girls, and the irreparable mischief an^ inexcusa-
ble wrong that is done them by sending them abroad to spend
all the forming years of their life in any foreign boarding
schools. The instruction given in the boarding schools, whether
in France, Switzerland or Germany, is too much like that given
in the primary schools of those countries ; it is milk for babes.
It is in marked contrast with the strong meat on which the
children and youth of our country are fed in our public schools
and our best boarding schools, and still more in our high schools
and academies. The latter, wholesome, invigorating and stimu-
lating, is fitted to make strong men, qualified for business and
the professions and to discharge the duties of private and public
lifa The former is adapted and intended to keep them, what
the common people are, emphatically in Germany, and more or
less truly in other European countries, always children. Intel-
lectually, I am fully persuaded, that it is a loss of time and
a loss of power for a boy to spend three, four, five or six years
of his boyhood in any foreign boarding school of which I have
ever had any knowledge.

But this intellectual loss is a trifle in comparison with the
effect which is produced on his character, his ideas of men and
things, his habits of thought, feeling and action, and his whole
standard and manner of life, and which is, of course, complete and
disastrous in proportion to the number of years of early life dur-
ing which he is exiled from home and country and brought up
under the influence of foreign ideas, customs and institutions,
as well as the direct teaching of foreign masters. The result
is, in fact, just what might be expected. You have stated it
none too strongly : these exiles return too often un-Americanized
if not un-Christianized. Not unfi'equently they lose all love for
their own country, all sympathy with its government and in-
stitutions, all regard for its morals and manners, all veneration
for its history and its religion. For this incalculable loss and
this irreparable injury, the only compensation is the knowledge
of a foreign language, together with possibly some slight
acquaintance with foreign lands and some little polish of man-
ners, which might be acquired, not perhaps as perfectly, but
sufficiently for any important purpose, in some other way.

EDUCATION ABROAD. 49

T have written strongly on this subject, because I have seen
ffie evil q/len and hng deplored it I have not time to write
as fully and strongly as I would my thoughts and feelings,
and my fears. But you do not need warning or instruction.
And I have written only to endorse the views which you have
published, and to encourage you to press them still more earn-
estly upon the public mind.

With great respect, yours very truly,

W. S. TYLER

Durham Center^ May 2l8t, 1873.

Dear Sir, — ^I beg leave to express to you my high apprecia-
tion of your lecture delivered before the Lowell Institute, on
the question " Should American Youth be Educated Abroad ?"

To this question, carefully limited in your statement, you
give a decided negative, which is sustained by facts observed
at home and abroad by yourself and others.

If the object of a parent were to educate his young child to
be a cosmopolite, so that in due time he would have no coun-
try and no creed that he could call his own, he might accom-
plish this object by placing that child, while his mind was in a
forming state, successively under teachers in France, in Ger-
many, in Turkey, and in China.

He might thus become a citizen of the world without feeling
patriotism toward any country in it. He might be able to
quote Voltaire, Kant, The Koran, and Confucius, without hav-
ing faith in any one of them. He might rival the admirable
Crichton, as recorded by the Earl of Buchan, or Margrave, as
exhibited in the Strange Story of Bulwer, and yet in this ma-
chinery of American society be entirely out of gear, and thus
useless and unhappy.

But leaving a supposable and extreme case, let us come into
the region of actual occurrences. Take an American boy of
ten or twelve years of age, hitherto taught in a district school,
and place him, first in a boarding school in France or Germany,
and afterwards in some higher institution there.

In the first place he is exposed to embarrassment from not
understanding the language in which the exercises of the

50 EDUCATION ABEOAD.

school, or higher institution, are conducted. His mistakes in
the pronunciation and the idioms of the language may often
produce a laugh from his fellow students at his expense, morti-
fying and discouraging him. The oral instructions given him
by his teachers from time to time may be imperfectly compre-
hended by him and therefore less profitable to him than to
others, to whom that language is vernacular.

But he is exposed to be injured in his morals before he is
aware of the danger. He may find from his own experience
what *' thin partition soul from sense divides ;'' how sentiment
sometimes degenerates into sensuality and passion into appe-
tite ; how social pleasures lead him downward into dissipation,
and the fascinations of the Picture Gallery cultivate a refined
Epicurism.

Thus it may happen that instead of bringing back stores of use-
ful knowledge, an intellect strengthened by severe discipline, a
strong conscience for meeting the temptations of life, and a
strong will to bear its trials and to perform its duties, he brings
only habits of pleasure, love of sight-seeing and an enervating
culture of the aesthetic part of his natura Thus instead of
being qualified to perform the high duties of an American
citizen, he finds himself fitted only for a life of ease and self-
indulgence.

The value of an education abroad must be derived from its
being subsidiary to a substantial education previously received
at home. In this way numerous Americans have derived great
advantage from a residence abroad. Thus Silliman in science,
Longfellow in language, John Quincy Adams in statesman-
ship, Washington Alston in art, Irving in literature, Charles
Cotes worth Pinckney and William Rawle in jurisprudence,
became distinguished in this country.

They continued to be Americans, though they gathered
knowledge from foreign countries.

With my earnest hopes that your efforts in promoting the
education of the youth of our country will be crowned with
success,

I remain, dear sir, very truly yours,

W. C. FOWLER

EDUCATION ABROAD. 51

The name of the writer of the following letter would give
additional weight to his opinions. He is now taking a promi-
nent part in tlie new educational movements of Massachusetts.
It is a significant fact that a man of such culture and experience,
after a prolonged residence abroad, should abandon an eligible
position in Europe and return to America for the benefit of his
children, and from a " decided conviction that the best place of
education for an American is in his own country."

Boston^ May 26, 1873.

My Dear Sir^ — Your excellent article is very conclusive. It
might be asked, indeed, whether any civilized nation except
our own has ever doubted upon this point in relation to its own
youth, and this is a negative proof of the wisdom of the general
feeling, that the moral, religious and political atmosphere of the
land in which children are born is the best atmosphere to bring
them up in. My own experience would lead me to believe that
after twenty, one may live abroad for many years without weak-
ening home ties or patriotic feelings, but from the age of seven
up to that of eighteen or twenty, the age during which social
relations and strong local attachments are formed, and those
ideas and opinions adopted which constitute the individual,
absence from home is dangerous, and generally results in mak-
ing a man the citizen of no country, and consequently without
that sense of duty which every man should feel toward that
special country to which he really belongs. Instead of ** prick-
ing in some flowers of that he hath learned abroad with the
customs of his own country," which is what Lord Bacon says
the youth who travel should do, he who is brought up abroad
is apt to " change his country manners for those of foreign
parts," as the great essayist tells him he should not do.

I myself had a very strong feeling about having my own
children brought up at home, and I returned to America after
an absence of twelve years for this purpose. Although I had
been more or less in Europe for the twenty-five years since I
left college, I found that my local attachments were as strong as
ever, and I can certainly say that instead of having become less
of an American, I am much more so than I was when I first
went to Europe. So far for personal experience. I have had

52 EDUCATION ABKOAD.

opportunities of seeing the effect of foreign education upon
many young Americans, and have observed that it is almost
always a failure.

I remain, yours very truly.

New Saveuy June 2, 1873.

My Dear Sir, — With the opinions expressed in your Report
as to the advisableness of sending American boys abroad to be
educated I am fully agreed. Of course, there are diflferences in
individual characters and circumstances, and what is bad on
the whole may be found good in exceptional cases ; but I am
convinced that, as a rule, our children are much better off at
home during the period of their training. The profitable time
to be in Germany or Prance is after the completion of an ordi-
nary course here ; and the more profitable, the more thorough
that course has been. Or if a youth can afford the time and
mind to take a certain period out of his regular studies and go
abroad, vacation-like, to learn the language and come back to
his work, that may also be a good thing. I have a very strong
feeling as regards the necessity of the two chief modem lan-
guages, (especially the German,) to any one who claims to be
liberally educated ; but I think that even this may be bought
at too dear a price.

Very respectfully yours,

W. D. WHITNEY.

Letters expressing concurrence in the same general views
were also received from Rev. J. P. Thompson, D.D., now in
Berlin, and familiar with German schools and universities; D.
C. Gilman, President California University; Hon. J. P. Wick-
enham, Superintendent of the schools of Pennsylvania ; J. 0.
Bodwell, D.D., late Professor in the Hartford Theological Sem-
inary, and for some fifteen years a resident in Europe ; Hon. J.
W. Simonds, Superintendent of Public Instruction, New Hamp-
shire ; J. H. Twombly, President of the University of Wiscon-
sin ; and Hon. H. D. McOarty, Superintendent of Public Instruc-
tion of Kansas.

EDUCATION ABROAD. 53

Instead of my personal impressions and observations in
Europe which I intended to present in further illustration of
this subject, the opinions of some representative journals are
given in the following pages. These are but specimens of many
similar articles published, but enough to show that this subject
is now up for discussion in all parts of the country, and that
the mania for European education is mischievous. No paper
falling under my notice has dissented from those views. This
remarkable unanimity of sentiment on the part of so many emi-
nent and experienced educators and editors from different
States, different denominations and parties, is itself a confirma-
tion of their truth. With the desire to foster a healthy public
sentiment, I have cited many ** witnesses." Their combined
and concurrent testimony will have more weight than extended
arguments from a single individual

Of late years a disposition has shown itself among us to send
our children abroad to be educated. So far as this springs from
that vulgar spirit which toadies whatever is foreign, which
cheerfully pays double price for an article manufactured next
door, but labeled " Paris," which flings money right and left in
foreign travel, to make the natives stare, and only gets laughed
at, we have nothing to say. There are a good many Jim Fisks
in the world, male and female, big and little. They must strut
and swell during their brief day, and then collapse after having
begotten their kind. We have no words to waste on such. To
the sensible, however, who only seek the best good of their chil-
dren, we would like to say a few words.

In the first place, good as the Prussian schools (it is to Prussia
most are sent) may be in themselves — and even these are not
what they used to be — they are not the best for American youth.
The latter inherit different tendencies, breathe a different atmos-
phere, have different aspirations, and must reach success by dif-
ferent methods, and, in a word, take pretty much the whole of
life differently. In every nation the scnobls are the growth of all
the forces that operate within it, — history, tradition, social char-
acter, civil institutions and religion, — and tend constantly to
reproduce and perpetuate them in kind. If, now, we wished to
Germanize our children, and establish them in Prussia as their
permanent home, the schools of the latter, with their studies,
methods, spirit, influence and general surroundings, would be
just the thmg for them ; but just the wrong thing, if we wish
them to be, and to remain, patriotic, practical, successful Ameri-
can citizens.

4

54 EDUCATION ABROAD.

Foreign schooling is unsafe, morally. School years are the
most susceptible in the whole life. This gives them their chief
value for all purposes of right education, making them the
seed-time for the life-long harvest. But it is also a prime source
of danger, making the y^outh quick to take ineffaceable impressions
from error and sin, while so little protected by judgment, knowl-
edge of himself and of the world, and moral stamina. The Chris-
tian parent sends his child with an anxious heart to the boarding
school or college even in this country, notwithstanding all the
Christian influences that surround the latter, above the average
of the general community. Must it not seem like inviting his
ruin to send him so far away from home influence ; from the land
of revivals ; from institutions of learning founded in prayer and
ever begirt with it ; to a land where revivals are almost unknown ;
where the Sabbath is a holiday ; where infidelity abounds ; where
vice goes in the garb of virtue ; and where no high-toned public
sentiment guards him around like the angel camp of Jehovah.

Of course, if the child stays long in Germany, he will bring
back with him a pretty good knowledge of the German language,
— and such a knowledge is not to be despised, — but it will have
been gained at the expense of a still more valuable knowledge of
the English language and literature, the richest in the world, and
the most important to him in almost every conceivable direction.

As to the private boarding-schools, which are supposed to be
specially adapted to foreign youth, Mr. Northrop says that they
are generally much inferior to the public schools, and that many
of them are superficial and pretentious, mere swindling concerns.

Such testimonies should be conclusive with all who seek only
the best good of their children. — Watchman and Reflector^
Boston,

At the dedication of the new Jefferson School, in Washington,
Hon. B. G. Northrop strongly condemned the prevalent fashion
of sending American boys to Europe to be educated. This warn-
ing was indorsed by Prof. Tyndall. We also indorse it. Such a
practice is anti- American and dangerous, tending to subvert our
free institutions, both by conveying the impression that our edu-
cational advantages are inferior, and by giving to foreigners the
training of our youth and the direction of their minds for action
when they shall reach mature manhood. The mistake might be
fatal were it general and wide-spread enough.

Our educational system, like our political, is peculiar, and dif-
ferent ftom that of European countries. The spirit of our schools
and colleges is allied to the spirit of our popular form of govern-
ment. Its tendency is toward individual and political freedom,
and the sovereignty of the will of the people. Our schools have
a republican bias. So in the countries of Europe, under a monar-
chical' form of government, education is made to conform to the
prevailing political ideas. Science is undoubtedly the same, but

EDUCATION ABROAD. 55

the discipline and the moral atmosphere of European schools are
essentially despotic. There is a recognition of class distinctions,
an homage paid to aristocracy, and a reverence shown for mon-
archy, which cannot fail to make their impression on the plastic
mind of the young. In short, the general tendency is toward
aristocratic and monarchical institutions, as the general tendency
of education in America is toward republican institutions. These
things are inevitable. A man's physical condition is no more
influenced by the air he breathes than his moral condition is
affected by his social and political surroundings. One's physical
constitution may be so strong as to resist, to a great extent, the
evil effects of a bad atmosphere ; and so one's moral constitution
may be able to ward off the influence of aristocratic and monar-
chical surroundings. But the chances are strongly in favor of his
suffering from the effects of both. If young and docile, the gen-
eral disposition is to yield and conform to surrounding associa-
tions and circumstances ; and as the earlier impressions are the
more lasting, one seldom recovers from the bias given in childhood
and youth. The molding and foundation of character is one of
the most delicate and important of duties, which the present gen-
eration always has to perform toward the lising generation. In
so far as it fails in the discharge of this duty, either through
thoughtlessness, carelessness, mercenariness, or neglect, is it re-
sponsible for the future of society and of the nation. The indi-
vidual may inherit good or bad propensities, but his character,
as a general rule, is likely to be very much what education and
surrounding circumstances make it. It is our business, therefore,
to look to these things — to the educational influences and the
moral, social and even political, as well as religious surroundings,
of our youth. If we would have them American, we should edu-
cate them as Americans ; not in a narrow and bigoted sense, but
in all the liberal principles and free and independent ways of the
intelligent, self-governing American citizen. Can we do this if
we send them into a foreign land to be educated by strangers,
whose ways are not our ways, and whose institutions are not like
our institutions ?

If there are any advantages to be enjoyed in foreign schools
not possessed by our own, then we would add to ours these
advantages, if it is possible. But if not possible, then give the
American youth a thorough education at home before sending
him abroad. Let him go only to finish his education, after having
exhausted our educational resources ; for surely there can be no
advantages so great as to overbalance those of a home education,
and none that may not be enjoyed after the home education is
completed. When the mind has been well drilled in American
ways and grounded in American principles, and when the mental
muscle is well developed and the understanding fairly opened, we
have little to fear from bringing our young men and women in
contact with foreign institutions. They cannot fail to perceive
the contrast, and the favorable light in which it places the laud

56 EDUCATION ABROAD.

of the free and the government founded and bequeathed us by-
Washington and his compatriots. We may then reasonably
expect their experience and observation in foreign lands to make
them all the more American in feeling and aspiration. — Utica
Herald^

It is a real service which * * * jy^j.^ g^ q.

Northrop, of Connecticut, has rendered to us all, in his recent
effort of striking, high and clear, a note of objection to the Ameri-
can mania of educating our boys and girls abroad. It is not
doubted that Europe can offer some intellectual advantages which
America does not possess. Nor is it denied that a residence in
Europe, both for sightrseeing and for study, is itself, if properly
managed as to time and duration, of the highest educational value,
and indeed indispensable to a complete culture. But it is most
strenuously to be urged that there is unwisdom and danger in tak-
ing an American child for education out of his own country, and
keeping him out of it through all the most sensitive years of his
life. The best preparation for an active life in America is to have
had in America the most of one's preparation for active life. Ex-
pertness in several languages is a fine thing, no doubt ; but it does
not need, and it does not deserve, to be acquired at the sacrifice of
an American boyhood, and of all the home-made earnestness, of all
the indigenous fun, and of the innumerable and unspeakable in-
spirations and aspirations bom of an American school-life. Whoso
sends his boy abroad for a period of training to cover his boyhood,
is liable to receive him back again by-and-by, neither an American
boy nor an American man, but that most elegant hybrid — an
elegant polyglot foreign gentleman of American ^ birth, who has
been several times all round the circle of the sciences and the
vices, who has lost the best gifts of America and gained the worst
of Europe, and who at last settles down to home life, which is to
him both a mystery and a bore. — The Christian Union^ New York.

In comparing European and American education, we find the
two systems essentially different, both in organization and
methods. The German Empire, for example, is largely despotic
in character. The schools are so thoroughly managed in the inter-
ests of government, that they necessaiily conform to the imperial
pattern. The individuality of the citizen is almost entirely lost in
the State.

The course of study, the text-books, the sentiments of devotion
to the existing state of things in the government, the exclusion of
all really progressive ideas, all unite to make one a mere tool
in the hand of the government. In the university the instruction
is conveyed almost wholly by lectures. The use of text-books
and examinations is almost entirely neglected. The lectures,

EDUCATION ABROAD. 57

given in a language foreign to American youth, are at best but im-
perfectly understood.

A student in a German university writes thus to the Yale Cour-
ant : " The instruction in the university consists entirely of lec-
tures. The student selects his own course. Except the recom-
mendation of certain books for reading or reference, recitation
or instruction through books has no existence : likewise there are
no examinations. A large number of students niove about from
one university to another, according as they wish to hear this or
that lecturer. They spend about three years in this way. As the
German student's mode of work is verv different from that of the
American, so is the general mode of life. The students are formed
into societies or * corps.' These form an important factor in the
student's life. Their avowed purpose is social enjoyment. What
is meant by ' social enjoyment ' in all these clubs is guzzling beer,
smoking, howling and gaming all night. Wednesday and Satur-
day nights are rendered hideous by these revelings. Duelling is
common among German students. With the exception of Fresh-
men, almost no ' corps ' student is seen without his gashes and
scars, produced by fencing with the rapier."

This picture of German student life needs no comment. Our
American ' schools have before them a different ideal from this.
We live on a different soil, breathe a different air, have different
civil and religious institutions. Whatever is good in the Old
World we are ready to adopt. Whatever is suited to the genius
of our institutions we can assimilate. Whatever is necessary to
our peculiar conditions and growth, we can incorporate. Ameri-
can genius need not hide its head. Already her authors and
scholars have a world-wide fame. Already her systems, both of
common schools and of free government, are the wonder and ad-
miration of the world. As wealth and prosperity comes in, let not
wisdom and patriotism depart. We can educate American youth
at home, as no university m Europe can do it. The fatherhood of
God, the brotherhood of man, the equality of all men before the
law, and many other distinctive American ideas, which our youth
need to learn, and which ought to become a part of their manhood,
can only be learned in America, and as the character is forming in
youth. American education aims not only at the development of
the individual, but at the means by which each rising generation
is put in possession of the attainments of previous generations, and
becomes capable of improving and transmitting this inheritance.
It secures the regular progress of society. It fashions childhood
and moulds the character of youth, by instilling into their minds
the thoughts and purposes that the commonwealth is designed to
establish and perpetuate.

The United States as a nation has a marked and distinct char-
acter. Its institutions, literature, arts, aims and hopes are all its
own. It is working out its own destiny. Now to preserve the
life and character of this nation, to maintain and advance its insti-
tutions, is the province of our system of education. Aristotle

58 EDUCATION ABROAD.

says : " The most effective way of preserving a State is to bring
up the citizens in the spirit of the government, to fashion or, as it
were, to cast them into the mould of the constitution.?' — The
Western^ St. Louis,

We regard it as unquestionable that the best education for an
American is to be obtained at home and in American institutions.
No parent w;ho has good judgment will, as a matter of choice,
send a mere child to a foreign land to be educated, unless it be
for foreign residence or some foreign service. And even in such a
case it would be far better that the foundation should be laid at
home. There are no better schools in the world for the traininor
and teaching of children from the beginning than are to be found
in our own land. For specific acquisitions, and in some particular
departments, foreign schools may afford superior advantages ; but
for a complete education of the physical, mental and moral powers,
and under proper religious influence, we are satisfied from observa-
tion both at home and abroad, that there is no country in which
an American child can be so well educated as in our own. Neither
cramming nor polishing constitutes education. A child must be
taught to think and to investigate, and this is done nowhere more
successfully than in many of our own schools.

The same may be said with regard to the higher education of
our youth. American colleges are now so thoroughly equipped
with the requisite facilities for study, with professors and lecturers,
men eminent in their several departments, and our institutions for
professional training are of such a high order, that there is no
occasion for a young man to go abroad for study. Nine out of
ten can study to far greater advantage at home. We have no
hesitation in saying that American institutions, taking the same
number of youth, would turn out a larger proportion of men well
informed and well prepared for the active duties of life than any
foreign institution with which we are acquainted. The training
which a young man receives in an American university, while on
some pomts it may not be so thorough, or the knowledge he
acquires so profound, is on the whole more general and far more
practical than in English or Continental universities. In very rare
instances, if at all, would we advise any young man to forego the
advantages of a home education for the hope of what he might
acquire abroad.

For one desiring to enjoy the advantages of European study, a
far better plan would be to complete a regular course in some one
of our well furnished colleges, and then perfect his training and
extend his acquisitions by study under some of the eminent pro-
fessors of the old world. This would be to gain the advantages
of both, and to place the matter upon the right foundation ; a
good home education. There is much to be gained by foreign
study as well as by foreign travel ; but the loss would be greater

EDUCATION ABROAD. 59

than the gain for any one who intends to spend his active life in
his native land, to seek his preparation for it by early education
abroad. By such a course he would, in nine cases out of ten, be
unfitted for his future course rather than qualified for it. Home
education for American youth should be the rule to which the
exceptions must be very rare. — New York Observer.

We have seen, within a few months, much to our gratification,
various articles in the nature of a protest against the sending of
American youth to Europe to be educated. We have specially in
mind an article, which we heartily endorse, from the Hon. B. G.
Northrop. For advanced scholars pursuing the study of some
sciences as their specialties, and for those who wish to perfect
themselves in the speaking of the modern tongues, the schools
of Europe furnish facilities which do not exist on this continent.
But for such disciplinary education as our colleges can give,
such professional training as our universities can impart, and
for accomplishments which the average man of learning is, in
our country, supposed to have acquired, there is no necessity
nor any other sufficient reason for going abroad. There is not
a particle of evidence that any foreign institutions of learning
are, on the whole, superior to our own, except in a few branches
of scientific research. Therefore, nothing is gained on the whole,
intellectually, by the sending of our lads and young men to Euro-
pean schools. A little is gamed, mayhap, in the line of aesthetics
and the cultivation of the taste ; but the power of art is so often
abused and made an instrument of corruption that the gain is
more than offset by it. Then, youth sent abroad suffer. They
suffer, if not from real home-sickness, from loss of family influence,
and home feeling, and domestic attachments, and the nameless
charms of American sociality. They suffer from the loss of patri-
otism. It is more than many older men can do to resist the des-
potic tendencies in the thought and speech of the continent of
Europe. There the people sneer at our country^ our government^
our free institutions^ and the very principles of liberty. And so
our young men loarn to belabor their own country, and to speak
disparagingly of its prospects. They suffer from the loss of man-
liness. Society there exists in stratifications. Things are stereo-
typed. Matters go by some unexplained inevitableness. The
individual is lost sight of. One must watch to see what will turn
up. Foresight, plan, self-reliance, energy, manly self-advancement,
are not dreamed of as parts of the personal development. And so
many a young man returns from abroad with all the " vim " taken
out of him. They suffer from a loss of conscientious morality.
In Europe, the distinction is small between manners and morals.
Good manners are supposed to include good morals, and the
morals are not much looked afler. A very thin partition divides
vice from virtue. The social atmosphere is commonly an infectious

60 EDUCATION ABROAD.

and impure one, and all become more or less tainted in it. And
they suffer from the loss of confidence in the reality and simplicity
of the Christian religion. The scepticism, the ritualism, the* ra-
tionalism, of foreign countries unsettle and dethrone their thou-
sands every year. Cathedral, choir, pageantry, pomp, and other
extravagances, and the reaction from tnese things, combine to lead
multitudes astray. Our belief is, that the longer our students and
other young men can be kept away from Europe, the better it will
be for them, both as scholars and as men. — llie Pacific^ San Fran-
cisco,

In the great and luxurious capitals of Europe, art, culture,
taste and aesthetics generally have been long cultivated, and there
has been great necessity for study and proficiency therein. For
show, display and amusement are great forces employed in the
government of monarchical countries. Hence the statesmen of
Europe constantly employ them as effective means to repress
thought and to paralyze efforts for liberty.

But education in these things is universal in foreign countries.
It is inculcated in public schools and in private academies. It is
taught in Church institutions and in colleges; it is impressed
upon the minds of youth by the oration, the lecture, the press and
the pageant. Such instruction is the atmosphere of Europe, and
few can resist the influence which the prevailing and universal
ideas and tastes have upon them.

Now the ideas and teachings of American institutions of all
kinds are radically opposed to all this. Intelligence, thought,
simplicity and self-reliance are the fundamental ideas and princi-
ples of our system. American youth are here brought under the
influence of that atmosphere, and it leads to very different results.

It is estimated from reliable data that not less than fifty
thmisand Americans are residing in Europe^ L 6., that number are
on the average aU the while remaining there. The periods of
sojourn vary from a few months to as many years, and it is evi-
dent that they are exerting an influence and an educating power
on those old communities.

Those Americans who live and are educated abroad, feel and
exhibit the leaven of evil which is mixed with their ideas. They
come back very much changed, and bring European ideas with
them, and spread the principles among their friends and associ-
ates. On the other hand, those who come from Europe already
leavened by nature and culture do not get rid of that evil, but
remain the fond admirers and supporters of the old country.
But we think that with adults Americanism is harder to wear off
than Europeanism is. Still we doubt whether those who remain
abroad long enough to be taken and charmed with European
ideas, and who endeavor in their home life and in their public and
religious life to put them in practice, are the best and most useful
citizens. They commonly show in some way that they are not in

EDUCATIOK ABROAD. 61

full sympathy with us, and the people treat them with suspicion
and coldness. The danger to our free and republican institutions
from this source, therefore, we do not think to be imminent nor
of large proportions.

But there is another class of our American youth for whom we
have long felt some apprehension. Besides the tourist, the pleas-
ure-seeker, the invalid and the economist, there is a large and
increasing class of youth of both sexes who go abroad to be edu-
cated. Ihey are of the most tender age, ranging from eight or
nine years to eighteen or nineteen. They go as members of the
family, their parents remaining with them, or they are placed in
seminaries and boarding-schools especially provided for that class
of students. The text-books, the methods, the' routine and exer-
cises are all European. Monarchical and aristocratic, absolute, or
despotic ecclesiastical ideas and principles are steadily and only
inculcated.

We do not find many youth of European families in our col-
leges and seminaries, coming here for purposes of education.
Tlie idea of doing so would seem preposterous to foreign parents.
They are persuaded that their schools are the best in the world,
their religious ways the standard, and thev would fear the effect of
the inculcation of republican ideas. Political circles would mark
such persons as unsafe for promotion and office, no matter how
highly educated, and hence the ambitious shun such a record.

Now it may be that our political economists will have to take
up this matter, for the safety of our institutions. Our schools of
all grades are as good as any in the world, and for the purpose of
raising up a generation to preserve and improve our institutions,
they are the best in the world. Professor Porter, of Queen's Col-
lege, Belfast, very recently paid a very high compliment to our
public school system, and to the " people's colleges," which are
the result of the practical application of our system. And he
gave that preference and deserved praise after close personal
observation and study. — The Episcopalian^ Philadelphia.

It is growing to be an important question, whether our coun-
trymen are acting wisely who send their boys and girls abroad
for education, by European methods, in European schools, acade-
mies and colleges. Certainly, the custom is now quite common
among those who have the means for its indulgence ; and it is
likely to become still more prevalent.

It is hardly to be doubted that in a religious aspect the custom
is not promising of good results. Except in Great Britain, per-
haps there is no part of Europe in which youth at school or col-
lege are not subject to the insidious instillment of dangerous 8})ec-
ulative theories concerning God and His revelation of Himself
and of His works in Holy Scripture. There is scarcely a faculty
in any of the continental colleges the members of which are not

62 EDUCATION ABROAD.

largely infected with religious views — when they have any —
which are unsound or positively dangerous. The same holds true
of schools in the grades next to colleges, and which derive their
tone and inspiration in a powerful degree from them. Parents
will find, therefore, we fear, that the religious sentiment of their
children will be seriously impaired by their contact with the
almost universal scepticism, mysticism, and materialism which
prevail in the schools and colleges of the continent, and which
color its literature, its science, and its polite society.

The transplantation of our youth to Europe for their education
is equally full of peril in its social bearings. What becomes of
the influence of home upon the youth of both sexes who are thus
withdrawn from parental guidance and restraint? These home
influences, so tender and so strong, so minute and 30 comprehen-
sive, are the subtlest and the most potent of all the processes of
education that can be brought to bear upon the plastic minds of
the youth of a country. They are an essential part of education,
of which none can be deprived without a serious injury to the
entire range of the nobler aflfections and sentiments. Nothing
that may be done by a sojourn in Europe to quicken or sharpen
the intellect can serve as a suflicient substitute for the influences
and training of the family — the example of and the intercourse
with father, mother, and sisters, at home.

There is peril, also, in this custom in a political view of it.
Youth growing up in a foreign land are gradually weaned from
and forget the land of their nativity, and thus lose their national
distinctiveness. They cease to be operated upon by the tradi-
tions, to be moved by the histories, or to be animated by the sym-
pathies which quicken and keep alive the patriotism of a people.
They lose their attachments for places — ^for their native village,
city, State, or nation — and become cosmopolitan and un- Ameri-
canized. They insensibly abate in their attachment to our insti-
tutions, and as insensibly are taught to depreciate our form of
government, and to discard the political truths upon which our
republic was founded. No exalted love of country, and no inti-
mate knowledge of its needs and capabilities, can be expected
from those who have been nurtured through th^ generous season
of youth on a foreign soil.

There is, moreover, danger that the withdrawal of our youth
abroad for their education, if it proceeds as largely as there is
now reason to apprehend, will exert a seriously injurious reflex
influence upon our higher educational institutions at home, by the
abstraction of the material on which to work, and of the support
and patronage which are essential to their progress and well-
being. Besides, we all know the tyranny of fashion ; and if it
should become the fashion for all our promising and brilliant
youth to look forward to the completion of their education in
Europe, it cannot fail to be a serious blow to the cause of higher
education in this country.

EDUCATION ABROAD. 63

As the result of our own observation, we have not discovered
that any intellectual superiority has, in fact, been attained by
those of our youth who have been educated in European acade-
mies or colleges. As compared with those who have been edu-
cated at home, they have reached no higher grade in culture, in
scientific acquirement, or in substantial mental power ; and they
are not as well fitted to cope with the practical needs of our polit-
ical, social, moral, and commercial surroundings. With a few
exceptions, they rather resemble hot-house plants, which are prone
to wither or be stunted by the process of repeated transplanting,
if the skies prove adverse. — Christian Intelligencer^ New York.

It is becoming one of the fashionable follies to send American
boys and girls to foreign boarding-schools. Being extra-expen-
sive and rather the aristocratic thing to do is enough to settle the
question with many; and there are others who, without much
thought, assume that there must be some superior advantages in
the training of European schools. That there are a few special
advantages cannot be denied ; but when the account is made up
and the balance struck, it is hardly a question but that an educa-
tion abroad will result in decided injustice to our American youth.
The acquisition of continental languages is one of the special
advantages better gained by such an education. It is a graceful
accomplishment to speak French, German or Italian with vernac-
ular fluency and the proper accent. But it is very questionable
whether the average exigencies of life will ever make it of much
positive advantage. The general benefit of travel and intercourse
with polite society in forming the manners and address of a young
person is something, especially if he be accompanied by his parents
or other family friends. But having said this, let us glance at the
per contra side.

The foremost objection is, that it exiles and un- Americanizes our
young folks just at the formative period when it is so important
that they should be surrounded by the atmosphere and spirit of
their native land. *'The man without a country" was painfully
conscious of his unhappy lot, but the boy without a country is an
unconscious sufferer. He will get over home-sickness as he does
sea-sickness, and at that receptive age readily takes in foreign
ideas and takes on foreign airs and customs, to the real detriment
of his future character and success in life. The American home
and school, especially the public school, are the natural out-
growths of the American spirit, and every American boy has a
natural right to grow up in their congenial soil. It is a positive
injustice to banish him from such surroundings, and tear away
and transplant him into a foreign soil just when the tender and
multitudinous fibers of his being are rooting themselves and gath-
ering strength. The Gennan home and school are the outgrowth
of the German spirit, and as to the French home and education,

64 EDUCATION ABROAD.

the least said the better. Bismarck is a fair product of German
education, and Louis Napoleon was not a very unfair specimen of
French development, and the puiiy and vapid prince imperial has
had probably the best done for him that French education could
do for a boy. But none of these characters would run well in
our country, as measured by their prestige and success abroad.
Precisely the same line of argument applies to the education of
our young girls.

By and by, when they can see and judge for themselves, hav-
ing been rooted and grounded in the American faith, let them go
abroad. We have none of these objections to urge against the
after advantages of a reasonable range of foreign travel. But
enough of Paris and Vienna is already imported here. The malaria
of foreign immoralities of idea and custom is sufficiently permeat-
ing our society, without our taking pains to settle down our boys
and girls, durmg their most absorbent period, right in the midst
of it. We are glad to see that many thoughtful and intelligent
Americans, who had ample opportunities for observation abroad,
most fiiUy and emphatically confirm these opinions. Mr. North-
rop, whose large experience as an educator entitles his decisions
to special weight, in the closing lecture of his recent course before
the Lowell Institute, while setting forth fully ai>d clearly all the
points of peculiar excellence and possible superiority belonging to
European schools, at the same time urged the strongest reason
wjiy American youth should not be educated abroad. As to the
outcry from some quarters against our public schools as being
" godless," and deprecating the proposed substitute of parochial
and sectarian schools, Mr. Northrop asserts that our American
and unsectarian plan of teaching only the universal and compre-
hensive ethical principles of a common Christianity is far more
efiective than the continuous drilling in religious dogmas and cer-
emonies, and that in those countries where they teach the cate-
chism more than Christianity, it is at the practical expense of
Christianity. Infidelity and immorality actually most abound
where an hour each day is specially devoted to so-called religious
instruction. — Springfield Republican,

We have for years held to the views set forth and defended by
Hon. B. G. Northrop, as to the serious error many American
families are falling into, in sending their young children abroad
to *be educated in foreign schools. There are no important
advantages to be gained in placing lads in any of the great
classical schools of England, and many marked disadvantages
arising from the peculiar discipline of these institutions, and the
traditionary customs still in force in them. The curriculum
of these schools is narrow, although the classical drill may be
thorough enough. The provision for the training of young ladies
in Europe is, to say the least, not in advance of portions of the

EDUCATION ABROAD. 65

United States. We have repeatedly conversed with both parents
and young people who have passed years upon the European con-
tinent, the latter attending the schools in Switzerland and Ger-
many. The one advantage gained has been a correct and ready
pronunciation of the Geraian or French tongufe, or both, but this
has been secured at a great loss, socially, morally and intellectu-
ally. With one accomplishment, these young students have found
themselves much behind their American peers in general knowl-
edge. The schools they have attended, instead of being agreeable
and holding upon them with pleasant memories, are only referred
to with positive disgust. After young gentlemen or ladies have
well advanced in their rudimental English studies, have become
acquainted with the grammatical construction of European lan-
guages, and learned to translate them freely, then a residence,
under proper guardianship, in France or Germany, to secure the
native pronunciation, or to attend the learned advanced course of
lectures, or to cultivate, under extraordinary advantages, -the
aesthetic arts, is certainly to be greatly desired. Even at this
stage of their education, to send young persons, of either sex,
without suitable family companionship, is a serious experiment,
attended with great discomforts, and often with no little moral
peril The cheapness of living in Europe has been one great reason,
on the part of persons with limited means, for seeking its educa-
tional opportunities. This advantage is every day decreasing.
With the increasing flood of travelers, and of temporary residents
from America and Great Britain, ordinary family expenses have
greatly advanced. The Franco-Prussian war, like our own, by
awakening a spirit of speculation, has enhanced the value of almost
all forms of merchandise, as well as of land and rents, throughout
central Europe. It costs fifty per cent, more to live in any of the
university towns than ten years since. Dr. Northrop, from per-
sonal examination, clearly shows the advantages of our public-
school training for young pupils over the foreign public or board-
ing schools, and points out distinctly the evil influences, of a
political and moral character, as well as the great intellectual
loss, attending the education of our children abroad. This paper,
from such a source, will awaken thought in the minds of intelli-
gent parents harboring such a purpose, and hinder any hasty act
of this nature which may prove of irremediable injury to a lad or
girl. — Zion^a Herald^ Boston.

We fully agree in opinion with those who look upon the expa-
triation of youth during the all-important years of their early
education as extremely perilous. It is surely much better to labor
for the elevation of our own institutions of learning, than to look
to other lands for the training of our future citizens. To imbibe
the aristocratic ideas of monarchical nations would fit the youth
for contented citizenship of those lands, but may unfit them for

66 EDUCATION ABROAD.

their future as republicans. Let us learn all we can of the wisdom
of other lands, and profit by their experience, but by no means
expose our youth to the possible demoralization of a French or
German boarding-school during the years when their characters
are most impressible. If parents accompany their children the
dangers are lessened, as they may taike with them the restraints
and inspirations of home ; but far better would it be to offer strong
pecuniary inducements to accomplished educators, to make our
country their home, and aid us in the work of training our youtli
for the great future that lies before them as citizens of this favored
land. — Friends Intelligencer^ Philadelphia,

Just now the tide is setting in for parents and guardians to take
their children or wards abroad, with the view of visiting the
Exposition at Vienna, and various other places on the continent
during the summer, and then in the fall fix them at some school
in France or Germany. It is urged that this course will make them
refined in their tastes and manners, and that the schools abroad
are better, and the course of education is more thorough.

Plausible, however, as all this is, we are convinced it is a seri-
ous mistake, and the consequences of this foreign residence, these
foreign studies, and these foreign associations, in a necessary sep-
aration from their own country at the most susceptible penod of
their lives, are of the most serious character.

At some of the universities in Germany, or divinity halls in
Scotland, or the hospitals and clinics of Paris and elsewhere,
young men, on the completion of their course here, may perhaps
go and spend a season with advantage. But to be placed at an
earlier period of life in the schools of almost any part of Europe,
and thus be separated from home and country, cannot but be
attended with serious risks.

Is it asked, " What are the grounds for this position ? "

1. The systems of education or training abroad are not, as a
whole, and for the thorough practicalities of life, equal to those in
our own country.

2. Separation from home and country during the most impor-
tant formative period of life cannot but tend to undermine that
love of kindred and country which always goes so far to make the
most devoted patriots.

3. The very fact of a young man or woman being sent abroad
to study, implies an inferiority in our schools and educational
institutions at home; and thus the whole tendency is to have
such persons enter upon life with a feeling that their own coun-
try is not equal to foreign countries.

4. With human nature as it is, the tendency of this foreign
course will be to give aristocratic ideas, and of superiority in soci-
ety and in practical life, and thus unfit such persons to engage in
almost any profession or calling here. — W, U, Presbyterian^ Phil-
adelphia,

EDUCATION ABROAD. 67

We have heard much, probably too much, said in favor of the
institutions of Germany. In the study of the classics and in
aesthetic culture no doubt they do excel. In fitting the American
pupil for practical life in America, they are as faf from us in points
of adaptaoility as they are in statute miles. If the schools of
Prussia or Austria were considered in regard to their adaptability
to the -wants of American life and citizenship, they would be seen
to be foreign in more senses than one.

The father says, " My son shall receive 2k foreign education."
And so he will if you deny him the associations and republican
influences of his own country during eight or ten years of the best
part of his life, and place him under the unstimulating and incom-
patible monarchial influences of another's " Fader land."

To be sure their higher universities are magnificent in plans,
architecture and appliances, but the instruction there given is
classical and presents a grand array of literary achievements,
while its main practical teaching is that the man is the creature of
the government and exists for the government. How unfitting is
this for American life.

The youth returns and for a few weeks may live on the flourish
of his " foreign airs," but soon awakens from the delusion to see
every American energy outstripping him, every republican princi-
ple avoiding his tainted touch, and the time in which he should
nave grown into the sympathy of his own country and her inter-
ests, gone, gone forever.

Of the moral education of the American pupil while in Europe,
the most that can be said is that it is questionable. An inter-
change of thought between nations we would do all in our power
to promote, but the undeveloped mind of the pupil in no way ac-
complishes such a comparison.

That the Germans laugh at our experiment is evident from the
fact that they have established private schools for foreigners which
are vastly inferior to their public institutions. — Iowa ISchool
Journal.

Hon. B. G. Northrop has taken in hand a growing evil, with a
determined purpose to check it if possible. We refer to the prac-
tice of sending our American youth to Europe for their education.
He has begun by the publication of an able, and rather startling,
article on the subject. He proposes to follow up the work, and
in this he is aided by some of the most eminent friends of educa-
tion in the country. We do not understand that his work has
reference to men of some maturity and culture, college ejraduates
and others, who ^o to pursue extended studies in the Umversities,
but rather to quite young persons who go to Europe for early
training in the public schools, or worse still, in tne boarding
schools. Mr. Northrop, by his long connection with education^
affairs in this country, by his extensive acquaintance, and his per-
sonal observation of the schools of which he speaks, is eminently
qualified for the work he has undertaken.

68 EDUCATION ABROAD.

Mr. Northrop's paper shows that, for the purpose of intellectual
drill and acquisition, our own institutions ar^ better suited to the
wants of our youth than those they will find in France or Prussia.
— Illinois Schoolmcister.

Few Americans have had better opportunities of studying
German schools and institutions, or of mingling with American
students abroad, than Rev. J. P. Thompson. D.D., long a resi-
dent in Berlin. I therefore asked his opinion on the question
of educating our youth abroad. He replied in full and elaborate
letters, appearing in the Niew York Observer, from which I
condense the following statements :

The question of sending American youth abroad to be educated
is of high public importance, since it concerns, in no small degree,
the future of American scholarship, literature, patriotism, manners
and religion. As a contribution towards these principles, I pro-
pose to give an analysis of the German and American methods
and courses of instruction, with reflections suggested by a some-
what close observation of German training and its results upon
mind and character.

1. For the easy acquisition of the French and German lan-
guages by their children, parents who can arrange to live in
Europe might do well to reside for a term of years in France or
Germany, with children between five and twelve years of age. In
such cases it is assumed that the children, . while mingling in
school and at play with children of another tongue, will be kept
under the social and moral influences of an American home ; will
learn lessons of patriotism and of religion with the English speech ;
and will be trained in the table manners, the personal habits, and
the social courtesies^ in which the well-bred Englishman or Ameri-
can is so superior to the average German, and even to the French-
man, if you do not wish your child to eat with his knife, to suck
down his soup like a maelstroom, to help himself to butter or salt
with his own knife — because there is neither butter-knife nor salt-
spoon upon the table — ^to comb his hair and blow his nose vocifer-
ously where others are eating, to talk at the top of his voice, to
mix all sorts of vegetables in greasy gravies steaming with onions,
and to content himself with a teacupful of water for his daily ablu-
tions, and with the alternate ends of the same towel for a week, and
to carry huge chunks of black bread and raw sausage in a bit of
dirty newspaper to school for his lunch ; if you do not wish him
to puff* cigars with his infant breath, and to utter a " Gott I" a
" Bewahre I" or a " Herr Jesus 1" at every incident of school or
play ; if you would not have him learn to sit stolidly staring at a
lady in church without offering her his seat, or to shove her off
the sidewalk by always keeping to the right ; in a word, if you
would not have your child grow up in all things the reverse of

\

EDUCATION ABROAD. 69

the quietness, the cleanliness, the decorum, the courtesy, that
mark the true English and American gentleman, then do not
place him in his growing and plastic years in any average " pen-
sion" in Germany. K circumstances should necessitate his enter-
ing such a home, wait till he is old enough to stand it or stomach
it, without sacrificing those properties of life which are inculcated
in good American families. To sum up all on this head, if you
can arrange to live abroad, and thus to surround young children
in their earliest years with the healthy influences of home and the
invigorating atmosphere of patriotism, in that case you may con-
trive, without detriment to other interests, to give them the
facility of acquiring modern languages, and also the taste for
nature and art, which may be cultivated to such advantage at
any well-selected point in Europe. But, on returning to America,
you will need to take special pains lest the knowledge of foreign
tongues should be lost through want of practice m speaking.
Experience shows that a language picked up so easily in child-
hood may be dropped almost as easily through disuse in riper
years.

2. Young men and young women, between twenty and twenty-
five, who have passed through the customary training of American
schools and colleges, and who have sufiicient stability of mind and
character to be entrusted with the care of their own principles,
habits and opinions, may be sent abroad to good advantage for
the pursuit of some specialty in literature, science and art, under
celebrated teachers, and for that enlargement of mind, that gener-
osity of judgment, that amenity of feeling, that cosmopolitan
appreciation of- men, peoples and institutions, which a sagacious
and susceptible spirit will gain from travel and residence in for-
eign lands. A thorough college course at home, supplemented by
an eclectic course at a German university, and this again capped
with the professional course in America — or the latter two inverted
— would give a young man the best possible preparation for his
calling in life. The sending of American youth abroad with such
a preparation, and for such accomplishments, is by all means to
be encouraged ; and the college officers at home will be found
the best advisers as to time, place, and lines of study.

3. But for the interval between twelve and twenty, Germany
can offer to American youth no better means of training than they
have at home, nor bo good a preparation for American life as
American schools and colleges provide. A youth at this period
might, indeed, be well-enough educated abroad, so far as mental
culture is concerned, though this is questionable ; and if attended
throughout his course with parental guidance and control, he
might be kept true to the tone of American manners, ideas and
principles — yet even then he must suflfer a lack of discipline in
the English language, in American history, and above all, in the
practical, common-sense American logic, and a loss of the esprit de
corps of the American Frateniity of Letters, and of the inspirations
of American patriotism and progress, for which no facility in for-

5

70 EDUCATION ABROAD.

eign tongues could ever compensate. There will be exceptional
cases, })vZ no wise American parent who can avoid it will subject
a child to the risks and privations of a JEhiropea/n education
during ths critical period from twelve to twenty — certainly not
alone! The private schools of Germany are so far inferior to the
best private schools in the United States that these can be left out
of the estimate, and the comparison will be made most fairly be-
tween the Gymnasium of Germany and the Classical Academy
and College of America, which cover the same period of life, and
between the Polytechnic Schools or the Gewerbe-Akademie and
the corresponding Scientific School — say, for instance, the " Shef-
field" department at Yale University.

The course of study in the Gymnasium covers a period of nine
years ; in the first five years the student is exercised in the follow-
ing studies ;

1. Meligion : History of the Old Testament, the Gospels, the
Catechism, and the Songs of the Church.

2. The German Language: Readings and declamations, studies
in the Sagas, the poets and the historians, with lectures and gram-
matical practice.

8. Latin : Grammar, with oral and written translation, prosody,
selections from Ovid, Caesar de bello Gallico.

4. Geography : Physical and political.

6. Mathematics: Arithmetic to decimals; Algebraic signs and
formulas ; Elements of Geometry.

6. Natural Science : Preliminary lessons in the Animal King-
'dom, in Botany, Mineralogy, and Anthropology.

7. Greek: Grammar, translation and composition, selections
irom Xenophon's Anabasis.

8. French : Grammar, Chrestomathy and composition.

9. History : Greek, Roman, and German.

To these are to be added lessons in drawing, in writing, and in
ringing. .

Compare this with the studies at Phillips Academy or at Willis-
ton Academy, and you will see that in classical and mathematical
studies the nrst five' years in a Berlin Gymnasium do not carry a
student so far as is required for admission to the Freshman class at
Tale. In geography and history no greater advance is made ;
rand the study of German and French would be at the expense of
English to an American boy at a time when he most needs to be
exercised in his native tongue. Is it wise, then, to send him
abroad for no greater advantages than these ?

The remaining four years of the Gymnasium run nearly parallel
with the collegiate course in America.

Compared with the course at Tale College, neither in extent
nor variety of instruction, in text-books nor in topics, is there a
shadow of advantage in the German Gymnasium over the Ameri-
«can College.

Why then send a boy of sixteen to Germany ?

EDUCATION ABROAD. 71

The comparison given above of the course of study in a Berlin
gymnasium with that pursued in the parallel years at Phillips'
Academy and Yale College demonstrates to the eye that, in
respect of discipline in the classics and the mathematics, and of
general attainments in literature, history, and science, the Ameri-
can youth from 12 to 20 would gain nothing by forsaking his
home-schools for the schools of Germany. The Gymnasium is
the gate-way to the University ; in the University, Faculties cor-
responding to the schools of Law, of Medicine, and of Theology
in the Umted States, and to the post-graduate Faculty of Philos-
ophy and the Arts lately established at Yale, Harvard, Princeton,
and other colleges, are grouped about a common center ; instruc-
tion is given wholly by lectures, and the student selects his own
course, and in that course his favorite professors. The Gymnasium
and the University are sought by the sons of the wealthy, the
titled, and the cultivated classes, with whom education is a pass-
port to good society, and also by young men who are looking
forward to one of the liberal professions, to the civil service, to a
professorship, or to the pursuit of literature, philosophy, or science,
m some specialty of the higher learning. This course is denomin-
ated " the spiritual culture."

But Germany has been awake also to the demands of recent
times. for an education directed to more practical ends, and based
more largely upon the physical sciences and the knowledge of
things than upon letters and the classics. For such an education
provision is made in the (r€t<?€rfte-schools, crowned with the
6?c«7erftc- Academy or Polytechnic. The course in the latter as to
topics and aims is parallel to that of the Scientific schools in Amer-
ica, and since the German Polytechnic is supposed to offer special
advantages to American youth, I propose to test this claim oy an
analytical comparison of the best specimens of each — say the
Polytechnic at Carlsruhe or Berlin with the " Sheffield" at New
Haven. In the (re«?erft6-8chool, which is preparatory to the Poly-
technic, the division and subdivision of classes corresponds with
that of the Gymnasium ; but the four upper classes will answer
for a comparison with — say the " Hopkins Grammar School" at
New Haven, as a preparation for the Sheffield. These classes
study as follows.

1. Religion : Biblical History ; Heathenism and Judaism ; the .
first. century of the Church; the Reformation; the Augsburg
Confession, and the Canon of the Scriptures.

2. German: the poets, lyric, epic, and dramatic; history of
German literature in the Middle Ages and in modern times.

3. French : Thierry, RoUin, Voltaire, Souvestre, Montesquieu,
Barran, Moli^re, Guizot, with grammatical exercises, translations,
and criticisms.

4. English: Survey of English literature; study of selected
authors, in which Dickens' Child's History of England, and
Irving's Sketch Book are combined with Bancroft, Macaulay and
Shakespeare I

72 EDUCATION ABROAD.

5. History and Geography: Greece, the Orient, Rome, the
Middle Ages and Modern Times.

6. Mathematics : Algebra, Logarithms, Geometry (both analytic
and synthetic). Trigonometry, Stereometry, elements of Differen-
tial and Integral Computation, with special reference to Analytical
Mechanics.

1, Physics : Heat, Electricity, Magnetism, Motion, Steam, Elec-
trodynamics, Cosmical Physics, Optics and Acoustics.

8. Chemistry and Natural History : Botany, Zoology, elements
of the Anatomy and Physiology of plants and animals. Crystal-
lography, Inorganic Chemistry, Organic Chemistry, Geognosy,
Chemical Technology with laboratory work, elements of Compar-
ative Anatomy. Neither Latin nor Greek is taught at all in this
school.

In comparison with the Academic preparation for a Scientific
School in the United States, the Gewerbe-^Qhool shows a superior-
ity in the study of French (and naturally of German), and in the
departments of Physics and Natural History, where the studies of
the Freshman year in the Sheffield are, to some extent, anticipated
in the Prima of the Gewerbe. But in Mathematics, Geography,
History and English, the Academy boy in America is carried
quite as far as the Gewerbe boy in Germany ; and besides, the
Academy boy has a training in Latin and Greek, in Caesar, Cicero,
Virgil and Xenophon, of which the Gewerbe boy has nothing at
all, though one would think that a scientific education should
embrace at least the rudiments of the languages from which the
whole terminology of science is constructed I Thus far then the
account between the Academy and the Gewerbe is fairly balanced,
and the apparent superiority of the Gewerbe in preliminary scien-
tific studies disappears when we pursue the comparison between
the "Scientific" and the " Polytechnic" ; for it is then seen to be
not at all a difference of quantity or degree in the matter of a
scientific course, but simply of the distribution or classification of
studies through a given term of years.

Commonly the boys in the Gewerbe-school are of a lower grade
socially than the boys in the Gymnasium, especially in large
cities ; — as a friend expressed it, " Gentlemen send their sons to the
Gymnasium and the University^ only the common people send to
the Gewerbe-schools." From ocular and nasal inspection of some
of these schools, I must say that an American boy of nice family
ought not to be subjected to such companionship, for if " cleanli-
ness is akin to godliness," the average Germans have sadly fallen
from grace I And for that matter, even in the Berlin University,
an American student informs me that his German seatmates dis-
gust him daily, in the brief intervals of the lectures, by taking
from their pockets bread, cheese and sausage, done up in a smutty
newspaper, eating with a jack-knife, and then combmg their hair
with unwashed hands. Such habits are Jargely national, but one
sees less of them in the Gymnasium and the University than in
the Gewerbe-school. Many boys use the latter as boys once used

EDUCATION ABROAD. 73

the Free Academy in New York, as a recommendation for busi-
ness. The catalogue of one of the best of these schools in Berlin
shows that the lower classes average about 100, the middle classes
only from 40 to 50, and the upper classes dwindle to 10 or 12 !

Coming now to the Polytechnic, to which the Gewerbe-school
is preparatory, how does this compare with the corresponding
Scientific School in America — say the "Sheffield " at New Haven ?
[I beg to be understood that I take Yale University as a standard
with no invidious reference to other American colleges, but be^
cause I am familiar with Yale, and have its latest catalogue at
hand.] To draw out in detail the comparison of studies, text-
books, exercises, etc., between Sheffield and a German Polytechnic,
would require too much space ; so the reader will be so good as to
accept the writer's testimony, from a minute analysis, that each
and every study, in each and every subdivision, is as specifically
and as thoroughly provided for at the Sheffield Scientific as at the
Carlsruhe Polytechnic, not excepting the German and French
languages, with only this proper difference, that the prominence
given in the Polytechnic to German history and literature, in the
Sheffield is assigned to English literature, history and composition.
If a boy does not master his own language, as to style and expres-
sion, between 12 and 20, he never will; and no matter how many
foreign languages he may know, his knowledge will be of no avail,
unless he can use it readily, clearly and effectively in his own
tongue.

The superiority of European education is pretty much a tradi-
tioUy which many cling to through ignorance of what has been
gained in America in the past generation. What would I not
give to-day to have had in my youth the classical and literary
training of a German Gymnasium and University as compared
with what Yale College could offer forty years ago! But for
the youth of to-day the difference is not worth the voyage across
the sea. Unless private reasons should otherwise direct, the un-
dergraduate period, whether in the College or in the Scientific
School, can be spent to better advantage at home than abroad,
even for the general object of intellectual training, apart from the
specific adaptation of that training to American life.

After graduation, the well-balanced student should come to
Germany, if possible, for a year or two of eclectic study at a
University. For the same reason the young German who is look-
ing forward to public life, and who would fit himself for the re-
sponsibilities of these times, should go to Yale or Harvard for a
year or two of study in political philosophy, and in the Constitu-
tional history and law of the United States. And what a world
of good it would do these young German licentiates to spend a
year or two at New Haven, Andover or Union in learning to put
thought into their sermons. The immense superiority of the
American pulpit over every other excepting that of Scotland lies
in its thinking power; and it will be a sorry day for the American
churches if, in a blind quest of popular effect or of the baser ele-

70 EDUCATION ABROAD.

eign tongues could ever compensate. There will be exceptional
cases, but no wise American parent who can avoid it will subject
a child to the risks and privations of a JEhiropecm education
during the critical period from twelve to twenty — certainly not
alone I The private schools of Germany are so far inferior to the
best private schools in the United States that these can be left out
of the estimate, and the comparison will be made most fairiy be-
tween the Gymnasium of Germany and the Classical Academy
and College of America, which cover the same period of life, and
between the Polytechnic Schools or the Gewerbe-Akademie and
the corresponding Scientific School — say, for instance, the " Shef-
field" department at Yale University.

The course of study in the Gymnasium covers a period of nine
years ; in the first five years the student is exercised in the follow-
ing studies ;

1. Religion : History of the Old Testament, the Gospels, the
Catechism, and the Songs of the Church.

2. 27ie German Language: Readings and declamations, studies
in the Sagas, the poets and the historians, with lectures and gram-
matical practice.

8. Latin : Grammar, with oral and written translation, prosody,
selections from Ovid, Caesar de bello Gallico.

4. Geography : Physical and politicaL

6. Mathematics: Arithmetic to decimals; Algebraic signs and
formulas ; Elements of Geometry.

6. Natural Science : Preliminary lessons in the Animal King-
'dom, in Botany, Mineralogy, and Anthropology.

7. Greek: Grammar, translation and composition, selections
irom Xenophon's Anabasis.

8. French : Grammar, Chrestomathy and composition.

9. History : Greek, Roman, and German.

To these are to be added lessons in drawing, in writing, and in
ringing. .

Compare this with the studies at Phillips Academy or at Willis-
ton Academy, and you will see that in classical and mathematical
studies the nrst five years in a Berlin Gymnasium do not carry a
student so far as is required for admission to the Freshman class at
Tale. In geography and history no greater advance is made ;
•and the study of German and French would be at the expense of
English to an American boy at a time when he most needs to be
exercised in his native tongue. Is it wise, then, to send him
abroad for no greater advantages than these ?

The remaining four years of the Gymnasium run nearly parallel
with the collegiate course in America.

Compared with the course at Yale College, neither in extent
nor variety of instruction, in text-books nor in topics, is there a
shadow of advantage in the German Gymnasium over the Ameri-
«can College.

Why then send a boy of sixteen to Germany?

EDUCATION ABROAD. 71

The comparison given above of the course of study in a Berlin
gymnasium with that pursued in the parallel years at Phillips'
Academy and Yale College demonstrates to the eye that, in
respect of discipline in the classics and the mathematics, and of
general attainments in literature, history, and science, the Ameri-
can youth from 12 to 20 would gain nothing by forsaking his
home-schools for the schools of Germany. The Gymnasium is
the gate-way to the University ; in the University, Faculties cor-
responding to the schools of Law, of Medicine, and of Theology
in the Umted States, and to the post-graduate Faculty of Philos-
ophy and the Arts lately established at Yale, Harvard, Princeton,
and other colleges, are grouped about a common center j instruc-
tion is given wholly by lectures, and the student selects his own
course, and in that course his favorite professors. The Gymnasium
and the University are sought by the sons of the wealthy, the
titled, and the cultivated classes, with whom education is a pass-
port to good society, and also by young men who are looldng
forward to one of the liberal professions, to the civil service, to a
professorship, or to the pursuit of literature, philosophy, or science,
m some specialty of the higher learning. This course is denomin-
ated " the spiritual culture."

But Germany has been awake also to the demands of recent
times for an education directed to more practical ends, and based
more largely upon the physical sciences and the knowledge of
things than upon letters and the classics. For such an education
provision is made in the Gewerbe^schoohy crowned with the
Gewerb&-AcsLdemj or Polytechnic. The course in the latter as to
topics and aims is parallel to that of the Scientific schools in Amer-
ica, and since the German Polytechnic is supposed to offer special
advantages to American youth, I propose to test this claim oy an
analytical comparison of the best specimens of each — say the
Polytechnic at Carlsruhe or Berlin with the " Sheffield" at New
Haven. In the Gewerbe-»chool, which is preparatory to the Poly-
technic, the division and subdivision of classes corresponds with
that of the Gymnasium ; but the four upper classes will answer
for a comparison with — say the " Hopkins Grammar School" at
New Haven, as a preparation for the Sheffield. These classes
study as follows.

1. Meligion : Biblical History ; Heathenism and Judaism ; the
first. century of the Church; the Reformation; the Augsburg
Confession, and the Canon of the Scriptures.

2. German: the poets, lyric, epic, and dramatic; history of
German literature in the Middle Ages and in modern times.

3. French : Thierry, Rollin, Voltaire, Souvestre, Montesquieu,
Barran, Moli^re, Guizot, with grammatical exercises, translations,
and criticisms.

4. English: Survey of English literature; study of selected
authors, in which Dickens' Child's History of England, and
Irving's Sketch Book are combined with Bancroft, Macaulay and
Shakespeare I

72 EDUCATION ABROAD.

5. History and Geography: Greece, the Orient, Rome, the
Middle Ages and Modern Times.

6. Mathematics : Algebra, Logarithms, Geometry (both analytic
and synthetic). Trigonometry, Stereometry, elements of Differen-
tial and Integral Computation, with special reference to Analytical
Mechanics.

7. Physics : Heat, Electricity, Magnetism, Motion, Steam, Elec-
trodynamics, Cosmical Physics, Optics and Acoustics.

8. Chemistry and Natural History : Botany, Zoology, elements
of the Anatomy and Physiology of plants and animals. Crystal-
lography, Inorganic Chemistry, Organic Chemistry, Geognosy,
Chemical Technology with laboratory work, elements of Compar-
ative Anatomy. Neither Latin nor Greek is taught at all in this
school.

In comparison with the Academic preparation for a Scientific
School in the United States, the Gewewe-school shows a superior-
ity in the study of French (and naturally of German), and in the
departments of Physics and Natural History, where the studies of
the Freshman year in the Sheffield are, to some extent, anticipated
in the Prima of the Gewerbe. But in Mathematics, Geography,
History and English, the Academy boy in America is carried
quite as far as the Gewerbe boy in Germany ; and besides, the
Academy boy has a training in Latin and Greek, in Caesar, Cicero,
Virgil and Xenophon, of which the Gewerbe boy has nothing at
all, though one would think that a scientific education should
embrace at least the rudiments of the languages from which the
whole terminology of science is constructed I Thus far then the
account between the Academy and the Gewerbe is fairly balanced,
and the apparent superiority of the Gewerbe in preliminary scien-
tific studies disappears when we pursue the comparison between
the "Scientific" and the " Polytechnic" ; for it is then seen to be
not at all a difference of quantity or degree in the matter of a
scientific course, but simply of the distribution or classification of
studies through a given term of years.

Commonly the boys in the Gewerbe-school are of a lower grade
socially than the boys in the Gymnasium, especially in large
cities ; — as a friend expressed it, " Gentlemen send their sons to the
Gymnasium and the University^ only the common people send to
the Gewerbe-schools." From ocular and nasal inspection of some
of these schools, I must say that an American boy of nice family
ought not to be subjected to such companionship, for if " cleanli-
ness is akin to godliness," the average Germans have sadly fallen
from grace I And for that matter, even in the Berlin University,
an American student informs me that his German seatmates dis-
gust him daily, in the brief intervals of the lectures, by taking
from their pockets bread, cheese and sausage, done up in a smutty
newspaper, eating with a jack-knife, and then combing their hair
with unwashed hands. Such habits are Jargely national, but one
sees less of them in the Gymnasium and the University than in
the Gewerbe-school. Many boys use the latter as boys once used

EDUCATION ABROAD. 73

the Free Academy in New York, as a recommendation for busi-
ness. The catalogue of one of the best of these schools in Berlin
shows that the lower classes average about 100, the middle classes
only from 40 to 50, and the upper classes dwindle to 10 or 12 !

Coming now to the Polytechnic, to which the Gewerbe-school
is preparatory, how does this compare with the corresponding
Scientific School in America — say the "Sheffield " at New Haven ?
[I beg to be understood that I take Yale University as a standard
with no invidious reference to other American colleges, but be^
cause I am familiar with Yale, and have its latest catalogue at
hand.] To draw out in detail the comparison of studies, text-
books, exercises, etc., between Sheffield and a German Polytechnic,
would require too much space ; so the reader will be so good as to
accept the writer's testimony, from a minute analysis, that each
and every study, in each and every subdivision, is as specifically
and as thoroughly provided for at the Sheffield Scientific as at the
Carlsruhe Polytechnic, not excepting the German and French
languages, witn only this proper difference, that the prominence
given in the Polytechnic to German history and literature, in the
Sheffield is assigned to English literature, history and composition.
If a boy does not master his own language, as to style and expres-
sion, between 12 and 20, he never will; and no matter how many
foreign languages he may know, his knowledge will be of no avail,
unless he can use it readily, clearly and effectively in his own
tongue.

The superiority of European education is pretty much a tradi-
tion^ which many ding to through ignorance of what has been
gained in America in the past generation. What would I not
give to-day to have had in my youth the classical and literary
training of a German Gymnasium and University as compared
with what Yale College could offer forty years ago! But for
the youth of to-day the difference is not worth the voyage across
the sea. Unless private reasons should otherwise direct, the un-
dergraduate period, whether in the College or in the Scientific
School, can be spent to better advantage at home than abroad,
even for the general object of intellectual training, apart from the
specific adaptation of that training to American life.

After graduation, the well-balanced student should come to
Germany, if possible, for a year or two of eclectic study at a
University. For the same reason the young German who is look-
ing forward to public life, and who would fit himself for the re-
sponsibilities of these times, should go to Yale or Harvard for a
year or two of study in political philosophy, and in the Constitu-
tional history and law of the United States. And what a world
of good it would do these young German licentiat*5S to spend a
year or two at New Haven, Andover or Union in learning to put
thought into their sermons. The immense superiority of the
American pulpit over every other excepting that of Scotland lies
in its thinking power; and it will be a sorry day for the American
churches if, in a blind quest of popular effect or of the baser ele-

74 EDUCATION ABROAD.

raent of commercial success, they shall part with one iota of what
has made their strength, their glory, and their increase. Said a
leading English minister to me, " Your American preachers think
where we Englishmen talk!'*'* Said the greatest Professor of
Theology in Germany, " We have no such preaching as the Ameri-
can in Germany. Ah I if we could only have your union of
thought with heart, of strength with feeling, of science with scrip-
ture, we might get hold upon the mind of Germany with the
Gospel." ^

This thing lies partly in the mental habit of the American, but
much also in the method of training — ^the breadth, the comprehen-
siveness and the logical vigor of the American education, compared
with the minuteness, the particularity, the exhaustive tradition-
alism, and the speculative fantasy of tne German.

Beloit College, )

Bdoit^ Wis., July lO^A, 1873. )

Dear &>,— For the prosecution of study in particular lines of
research, no doubt one can find superior advantages in some of
the European schools. But it seems to me evident that so far as
the beginning of mental culture and the broad basis of general
intelligence and manly development are concerned, an educa-
tion in America is quite essential for American citizens.
While the leading parts of scien3e, and the principles of phil-
osophy and the substance of learning are the same for all the
world, the national life of any people is sustained mainly by
those ideas which are peculiar to its social organization and
history; and those ideas are best imbibed by young minds
through the unconscious tuition incidental to courses of train-
ing and culture, presented for years in the atmosphere which is
charged with them. The rapid inflow upon us of foreigners
whose ideas can be but slowlv assimilated to their new rela-
tions, makes it all the more important that those who are to be
leaders of thought and influence among us be thoroughly
imbued with the national spirit and prepared to guide the
swift movement of our nation's progress.

Then we are steadily developing a distinctively American
system of education best adapted to the circumstances and
needs of our own country. Our youth need to hold themselves
perseveringly to the course of training thus provided. The
dissipating effect of frequent changes of school regimen so com-
mon with our people works mischievously. More than any-

EDUCATION ABROAD. 75

thing else, it hinders thorough scholarship and high attain-
ment.

These considerations produce in my mind the strong convic-
tion that for the traimng period of education, that is, from the
beginning in the primary school to the graduation from col-
lege, our home institutions furnish the best facilities for edu-
cating our youth for the privileges, the duties, the honors and
responsibilities of American citizens. After the foundation
has thus been well laid, every one who has the opportunity
will gain much in general intelligence and breadth of views
and in whatever specific research may be desired, by contact
with the institutions of the old world.

Very truly yours, A. L. CHAPIN,

President of Behit College.

Dartmouth College, )

Hanover^ N, IT,^ July 14, 1873. J

My Dear Sir. — I approve fully and heartily the view you
take, and that on intellectual, moral and patriotic grounds. I
have been amazed at the disposition on the part of those who
ought to know and do better, to send mere children abroad for
education. It is un-American. It is contrary to the funda-
mental laws of culture. To reverse a Scripture figure, it is
sewing old cloth into a new garment. It is like transferring a
young and tender American plant to a European soil, only to
grow there a little while, and then be transplanted again. It
interrupts and confuses the process of development It lays
foreign foundations for what should be an American edifice.
It forms, or is apt to form, a mongrel character, with an infe-
licitous mixture of old-world and new-world associations and
habitudes. And there are moral dangers connected with it
siill more momentous.

That there is a period in the process of education when for-
eign study may be useful, either in certain academic special-
ties or in professional directions, I have no doubt I would
not underrate the advantages offered by some of the great
European universitiea Yet I have as little doubt that we are
by-and-by to have like advantages in our own land. My
advice to those who think of study abroad is, to make it not

76 EDUCATION ABROAD.

fandamental or constituent, so to speak, but rather supplement-
ary. I have known students to transfer themselves from a col-
lege class to a German university, even as early as Sophomore
year, but always with a loss — not to say, in some cases, with an
utter failure. Let the college curriculum be finished in some
good American institution, and then, perhaps, it may be well
to go abroad. Yet it would ordinarily be better, in my judg
ment, to take first the professional course, and then supple-
ment and enrich it at some foreign institution. He who does
this is better prepared to profit by whatever teaching he avails
himself of He knows what he wants. His outline of acquisi-
tion is marked out. The principles are mastered around which
all new informations will easily crystallize. He has, every way,
a better receptivity, and will make a broader, more complete,
more symmetrical thing of his whole education. He will be a
truer and better American scholar.

Yours very truly, ASA D. SMITH,

President Dartmouth College,

Paris, Prance, July 3, 1873.-

Dear Sir, — I fully sympathize with you in the sentiments
expressed in your excellent article on " the Education of
American youth in Europe," and it seems to me that your
warning has come not a moment too soon. The paragi'aph
beginning with " In philological studies and researches," etc.,
and ending with ** The American boy needs about two years
of preparation," etc., is strongly and tersely put, and contains
truths which shquld be gravely pondered by all American
parents who think of giving their children a European educa-
tion, yet would shrink from seeing them intellectually or
morally Germanized or Gall.cized. After my return to the
United States, when in a fitter condition to do it, I will try to
give you my impressions on the subject more in full. Thank-
ing you for your kind invitation to write, I remain, with many
pleasant recollections of my compagnon de voyage in the Algeria,
Yours with esteem, WILLIAM MATHEWS,

Professor in the University of Chicago.

(The above letters were reoeived too late for insertion in their proper place.)

LEGAL PEEVENTION OF n^LITEEACY.

My former objections to compulsory education were fully
removed by observations recently made in Europe. Mingling
much with plain people in Germany and other countries where
attendance at school is compulsory, I sought in every way to
learn their sentiments on this question. After the fullest
inquiry in Prussia, especially among laborers of all sorts, I no-
where heard a lisp of objection to this law. The masses every-
where favor it. They say education is a necessity for all.
They realize that the school is their privilege. They prize it
and are proud of it. Attendance is voluntary, in fact No-
body seems to think of coercion. The law is operative, but it
executes itself, because it is right and beneficent and commands
universal approval. It is only the legal expression of the pub-
lic wilL

Education, more than anything else, has fraternized the great
German nation. "Whatever you would have appear in a
nation's life, that you must put into its schools," was long since
a Prussian motto. The school has there been the prime agent
of loyalty. Love of country is the germ it long ago planted in
the heart of every child. The fruit now matured gladdens and
enriches the whole land. Wherever that lesson is heeded it
will enrich the world. Devotion to fatherland is a characteris-
tic sentiment of the German people. Shall such a people with
such a history complain of compulsory attendance ? This law
itself has been a teacher of the nation. It has everywhere pro-
claimed the necessity and dignity of the public school. Kings
and nobles and ministers of State have combined to confirm
and diffuse this sentiment till now it pervades and assimilates
all classes.

The absence of complaint about coercive attendance is not
due, as some have supposed, to an enforced reticence or re-
straint. Proofs of the utmost freedon of speech abound. The
Prussian military system is a grievous burden to the people.
. They dread it and bitterly denounce it The law which takes

78 LEGAL PREVENTION OF ILLITERACY.

away every young man from his friends, his business and his
home for three weary years of military service, is hard, and is
freely condemned. Many young families'have left their father-
land for America, and many more are now planning to emigrate
in order to escape this arbitrary conscription. But even the
father who is most aggrieved by the army draft,^ lauds the
school draft.

In various parts of Saxony I inquired of school-directors
and others, " Do you have any diflB.culty in executing the coer-
cive law ? The answers were all substantially the same. " Many
years ago," replied one, " there was some opposition. But the
results of the law have commended it to all, and they obey it
without complaint and almost without exception." The pres-
ent generation of parents having themselves experienced its
advantages, are its advocates. Said a resident ox Dresden, "A
healthy child of school age can hardly be found in this city
who has not attended school. Were the question of compul-
sory attendance to be decided to-morrow in Saxony by a ple-
biscite, it would be sustained by an almost unanimous verdict
Public opinion is now stronger even tha^ the law. The people
would sooner increase laan relax its rigor." I nowhere learned
of any recent cases of punishment for its infractions. In many '
places I was assured that the penalty is practically unknown.

The principle of obligatory instruction was advocated by the
people before it was enacted by the government The address
of Luther to the municipal corporations in 1554 contains the
earliest defence of it within my knowledge, in which he says,
" Ah, if a State in the time of war can oblige its citizens to take
up the sword and the musket, has it not still more the power,
and is it not its duty to compel them to instruct their children,
since we are all engaged in a most serious warfare waged with
the spirit of evil which rages in our midst, seeking to depopu-
late the State of its virtuous men ? It is my desire, above all
things else, that every child should go to school, or be sent
there by a magistrate."

The germ of this system in Prussia is found in a decree of
Frederic II, in 1763 : " We will that all our subjects, parents,
guardians, and masters send to school those children for whom
they are responsible, boys and girls, from their fifth year to the

LEGAL PBEVENTIOX OF ILLITEBACy. 79

age of fourteen." This royal order was revised in 1794, and
in the code of 1819 made more stringent, with severe penalties ;
first warnings, then small fines, doubling the fines for repeated
offences ; and finally imprisonment of parents, guardians and
masters.
The penalties now are :

1. Admonition, in the form of a note of warning fix>m the
president of the local school commission.

2. Summons to appear before the school commission, with a
reprimand from the presiding officer.

8. Complaint to the magistrate by the commission, who
usually exacts a fine of twenty cents, and for a second offense
forty cents, for a third eighty cents, doubling the last fine for
each repetition of the offense.

The registers of attendance and absence are kept with scrupu-
lous exactness by the teacher, and delivered to the president of
the school commission. Excuses are accepted for illness,
exceedingly severe weather, great distance from school, and
sometimes on account of the pressure of work in harvest time.

What may America learn on this subject from the long and
successful experience of Germany and Switzerland? The con-
trast between those countries and England, or even New York
city, in regard to the number of ignorant " street Arabs," is
too conspicuous to be questioned. For the patriot and the phi-
lanthropist there is no more important question than : " How
shall we reclaim our neglected children?" With growing
faith in moral suasion as our main reliance in preventing ab-
senteeism, I now contend for the authority of the law with its
sterner sanctions to fall back upon in extreme cases. When
paternal pride, interest, or authority fails, and juvenile perverse-
ness is otherwise incorrigible, legal coercion should be em-
ployed.

When our population was homogeneous, as was the case in
the early history of New England, there was little absenteeism
from schooL All valued education, and with rare exceptions,
all native-bom citizens could read and write. " Where were
you bom ?" was the inquiry of Judge Daggett, long the Kent
Professor of Law in Yale College, on finding any witness on
the stand, or criminal in the dock, who could not read and write ;

80 LEGAL PREVENTION OF ILLITERACY.

and with only three exceptions, during his long time of judicial
service, he n^ver received the answer, " In Connecticut" But
recently, immigration has caused startling figures of illiteracy,
especially in our large cities. With this ignorance comes in-
difference to. education, for illiteracy involves insensibility to
the evils it engenders.

To remedy truancy, we should inquire first for its causes.
These are various. So should be the remedies in order to meet
each exigency. We should not despair of reclaiming the most
desperate. They may be desponding, with no hope of bettering
their condition, no pride of character, respect for truth, or even
sense of shame, — yes, false and profane, and yet we must not
give them up as hopeless cases, but with faith in Christian incen-
tives, strive to stir the conscience and win the heart Though
unaccustomed to kindness, such boys are not of course insensi-
ble to its influence. The tones of sympathy may touch a chord
which will vibrate more sweetly because of its very strangeness.
If we will put ourselves in the place of wayward children, so as
to appreciate their wants, weakness,, and wickedness even, we
may tell them not in vain both of the perils they incur and the
privileges they neglect The most forlorn child I have met,
when properly approached, has kindly received friendly counsel
and even warnings as to his offenses. I can recall many in-
stances of youth thus rescued fi-om the street school who are
now virtuous citizens. How amply have such services been
compensated by grateful acknowledgments, or tears of joy,
more eloquently showing a cherished remembrance of timely
aid and counsel !

Neglect of school may usually be traced to parental indiffer-
ence, intemperance, or other evil home influence. How many
youth receive no right parental training and have no home
worthy of the name. The house where they only eat and
sleep is the scene of contention and profanity, fitted to drive
away its inmates to the street school. Dissolute habits of
parents bringing rags and wretchedness into the home turn the
children as truants or beggars into the streets; These vagrants,
accustomed to " bunk out " where night overtakes them, soon
lose pride of character, self-respect, and even all sense of their
degradation. To them the prospect of self -improvement brings

LEGAL PREVENTION OF ILLITERACY. 81

no bright visions of better days. Forlorn and without hope
and ambition, they live from hand to mouth, content with the
supply of their animal wants.

Sometimes poverty, loss of parental control, orphanage,
hard experience of neglect and conscious degradation, are the
sources of this mischief. The ** street Arabs," the juvenile
vagrants and beggars who abound in certain European coun-
tries, are the hardest to get to school, or to teach when there.
They live in the street, without guardianship and without
employment, except such as chance throws in their way.
Many imported specimens of the same sort are now thronging
our large cities. A due consideration of their early exposures,
hardships and temptations would awaken sympathy for these
unfortunate waifs in place of the coldness and disdain with
which they are too often treated.

When poverty detains from school, public or private charity
should meet the exigency, supplying the lack of decent cloth-
ing, and inviting the attendance of the most destitute absentees.
In Sweden and other European countries, those children whose
parents are unable to clothe them are relieved by the parish.
Among us, the parents of neglected children, if not vicious, are
mostly immigrants. Of the advantages of education they yet
know little. A dormant parental pride, if not a sense of their
duty as the divinely-appointed guardians of their oflfepring,
may be awakened. They may be led to see that education will
promote their interest and increase their children's happiness,
thrift, and prosperity through life. Personal kindness, tact, and
persuasion may thus win those who seem perverse.

Pubjic sentiment is moving rapidly in the direction of com-
pulsory education. During the last year this question has been
discussed in the legislatures of Pennsylvania, Ohio, Connecticut,
New Hampshire, Michigan, and other States. It is the most
important school question of modern timea It is the leading
question which divides the friends of education in France and
England. In this great conflict, the older American States
should take the lead. In each State our plans should embrace
more than our boundaries. The interests of all the American
States are virtually ona Like that of Switzerland, our motto
should be, " One for all, all for one." The unification of Ger-

82 LEGAL PREVENTION OP ILLITERACY.

many and of Italy — the most important of the recent political
events in Europe — ^are largely the results of public instruction.
Our people also, diverse in race and character, need now to be
fused into one. More than anything else universal education
will thus fraternize alL The extension of the franchise in our
country demands a corresponding expansion of the school. To
give the ballot to the ignorant would be suicidal to the nation.
In the interest of public morality and order, the security of life
and property, as well as for the .safety and perpetuity of our
free institutions, every agency should be employed to secure
universal education.

Obligatory attendance is a corollary from the compulsory
school tax. The power that claims public money for the pur-
pose of educating and elevating all classes may justly provide
that such public expenditure shall not fail of its appropriate end
through the vice, intemperance, or perverseness of parents.
The State has the same right to compel the ignorant to learn
that it has to compel the penurious to pay for that learning.
If education is of universal interest, it must be universal in its
diffusion. Many taxpayers have said to me, " if you compel
us, who have no children, to support schools for the good of the
State, you must effectively provide that the children of the
State fail not to share the advantages thus furnished. While
we, willing or unwilling, must support the schools, the children,
by constraint if not from choice^ should attend school"

And why not ? The following are all the objections I have
heard:

" Such a law would create a new crime." I reply, it ought
to. To bring up children in ignorance is a crime, and should
be treated as such. As the most prolific source of criminality,
it should be under the ban of legal condemnation, and the re-
straint of legal punishments. All modem civilization and legis-
lation have made new crimes. Barbarism recognizes but few.
To employ children in factories who are under ten years, of age,
or who have not attended school, or to employ minors under
eighteen years of age more than twelve hours a day, is each a
** new crime" in the New England and several other States. If
the law may justly protect children from being overworked,
surely it may prevent their continuing uneducated, for " un-
educated mind is educated vice.*'

LEGAL PEEVENTION OF ILLITERACY. 88

" Such a law is a substitution of forfce for reason." So are all
laws. They must be compulsory. At least force must always
be in reserve. To the good citizen " the statutes " bring no
terror. They formulate his choice and are the pledge of his
safety, or the monitor of his duty. Force should always stand
in the background, unless lawlessness challenges it to the front.
But criminal provisions without penalties are only a burlesque
of legislation.

"We should draw and not drivey I reply "draw" to the
utmost. Try all the measures and motives which kindness and
argument can suggest I have already urged the importance
of making moral suasion our main reliance, and of seeking to
the utmost by sympathy, encouragement and material aid where
needed, to gain the confidence and cooperation of parents and
children. Admitting that it is better for children to attend
school of their own accord, I would use every reasonable device
to make the school attractive as well as profitable.

" It interferes with the liberty of parents." I reply again, it
ought to, when they are incapacitated by vice or other causes
for the performance of essential duties as parents. Many other
laws limit personal liberty. The requisition to serve on juries,
or to aid the Sheriff in arresting criminals, or the exactions of
military service in the hour of the country's need, — these and
many other laws do this. If the law may prohibit the owner
from practicing cruelty upon his horse or ox, it may restrain the
parent from dwarfing the mind and debasing the character of
his child. If the State may imprison and punish juvenile
criminals, it may remove the causes of their crime and its con-
sequences of loss, injury and shame. To protect the rights
of the child and enforce the duties of parents is not an invasion
of rights nor any usurpation of parent^^l authority. The child
has rights which not even a parent may violate. He may not
rob his child of the sacred right of a good education. The law
would justly punish a parent for starving his child, and more
mischief is done by starving the mind than by famishing the
body. The right of a parent to his children is founded on his
ability and disposition to supply their wants of body and mind.
When a parent is disqualified by intemperance, cruelty, oi;^
insanity, society justly assumes the control of his children. In

84 LEGAL PREVENTION OF ILLITERACY.

ancient Greece, the law gave almost unlimited authority to the
father over his offspring. The same is true in some semi-bar*
barous nations now. In all Christian lands, the rights of the
parent are held to imply certain correlative duties, and the duty
to educate is as positive as to feed and clothe. Neglected chil-
dren, when not orphans in fact, are virtually such, their parents
ignoring their duties, and thus forfeiting their rights as parents.
The State should protect helpless children, whose rights are
sacred, and especially these, its defenceless wards, who other-
wise will be vicious as well as weak. We should recognize
the claim of the humblest child to an education as that which
it cannot neglect without detriment to itself and harm to a
human soul. The State may not by act or omission doom
a single child to ignorance and its consequent evils. The
temporary hardships incident to the observance of such a
law will be counterbalanced a thousandfold by the perma-
nent advantage of both parents and children, but its neglect
will inflict lasting evil upon them and the whole community.
The poor cannot afford to transmit their poverty by depriving
their children of education — the surest source of thrift The
old proverb, " penny wise and pound foolish," fitly characterizes
the short-sighted policy of permitting indigence to perpetuate
ignorance, and in turn ignorance to perpetuate indigence.

" It arrogates new power for the government" So do all
quarantine and hygienic regulations and laws for the abatement
of nuisances. Now ignorance is as noxious as the most offen-
sive nuisance, and more destructive than bodily contagions.
Self-protection is a fundamental law of society. Education is
the universal right, duty and interest of man. If the State has
a right to hang a criminal, it has a better right to prevent his
crime by proper culture. » The right to imprison and to execute
implies the right to use the best means to prevent the need of
either. The State has an interest in all its children, for its
thrift and virtue and its very life depend upon their training.

"It is un-American and ill adapted to our free institutions."
Such a law in our country should command popular sympa-
thy more than in any monarchy, for here the law is made by
the people and for the peopla It is not pressed upon them by
some outside agency or higher power. It is their own work,

LEGAL PREVENTION OF ILLITERACY. 8^

embodying their judgment and preference, and expressing their
own view of the necessity of universal education. The form of
compulsory education which existed in Connecticut for over a
century was not forced upon the people as ** subjects." It was
rather a living organism, of which they as "sovereigns,"
proudly claimed the paternity, growing up with their growth,
and recognized as the source of their strength and prosperity.
But to put the question in the most offensive form, it may
be asked, " Would you have a policeman drag your children
to school ?" I answer, " Yes, if it will prevent his dragging
them to jail a few years hence." But this law in. our land
would involve no " dragging " and no police espionage or inquis-
itorial searches. With the annual enumeration and the school
registers in hand, and the aid of teachers and others most
conversant with each district, school officers could easily learn
who are the absentees.

There is no country in the world more jealous of liberty and
more averse to any form of usurpation than our sister republic
of Switzerland. It rejoices in being the land of fieedom. It
glories in free schools, free speech, free press, free trade, free
roads, free bridges ; for its roads, though the best in Europe,
are without toll, and even the most costly suspension bridges
are free. It has freedom in religion and freedom in traveling,
no passports being required and no examination of luggage ;
no standing army, and no gensdHarmes brandishing the threaten-
ing hand of power, as everywhere else in Europe. And yet
this free people in all their twenty-two cantons, except four of
the smallest, choose for themselves the system of compulsory
attendance. As a matter of fact, with some rare exceptions^
every healthy child in his turn attends school. Director Max
Wirth of Bern proudly asserts that " no grown up boy or girl
exists in this confederation — save an idiot here and there —
who cannot read and write." Till he is six or in some can-
tons seven years of age, the Swiss child may only dream of
school, as he sees his brother or sister going thither before
seven o'clock in summer, and eight in winter. Swiss parents
see to it that these shall be pleasant dreams. The school is the
center of attraction and interest Attendance is held as a privi-
lege rather than a legal necessity. The law itself has helped

6

86 LEGAL PREVENTION OF ILLITERACY.

to invest the scbool with dignity and honor. " Attention to
his school is not a fixed and formal business to a Switzer, as it
might be to a Briton and a Frank, but an unceasing and
engrossing duty from his cradle to his grave." The cost of
education in Switzerland is, for them, immense — greater than
that of the army. In contrast with Switzerland, France spends
fifteen times more for the army than for schools, and even in
London and Berlin the war budgets are in excess of the edu-
cation budgets. The cost of education in Switzerland is con-
siderably over two millions, while that of army is less than two
millions.

In our own country there is every assurance of kindness and
conciliation in the execution of this law. The plan is truly
democratic, for its entire management is for the people, and by
the people, through school officers chosen by and responsible to
them. In 1871, Connecticut passed a law enforcing attendance
at school of all children discharged from factory or other work
for that purpose, with a penalty of five dollars a week for every
week of non-attendance, not exceeding thirteen weeks in each
year. The people plainly approve that law, stringent as are its
provisions. It has already accomplished great good, and brought
into the schools many children who otherwise would be absen-
tees. There have been no penalties, no prosecutions, no oppo-
sition even. The law itself has been a moral force. It is itself
an eflfective advocate of education to the very class who need it
most. In 1872 the same law was made universal in its applica-
tion. The official returns for the current year since the latter
law went into operation have not yet been received. The law
is generally approved and its wisdom and necessity are admitted.
Since its enactment, no article, editorial or contributed in any
Connecticut paper has expressed disapproval of it, so far as my
knowledge extends. It is certainly increasing the attendance
in many places. The Trustees of the State Eeform School say
it has already lessened commitments to that institution. As
yet there have been no prosecutions under this law. Persua-
sion rather than penalties should be the main reliance. But
kindness and argument prove more eflfective when it is under-
stood that the sanctions of law might be employed.

LEGAL PREVENTION OF ILLITERACY. 87

It is largely through immigration that the number of ignorant,
vagrant, and criminal youth has recently multiplied to an ex-
tent truly alarming in some of our cities. Their depravity is
sometimes defiant, and their resistance to moral suasion is obsti-
nate. When personal effort, and persuasion, and organized
benevolence have utterly failed, let the law take them in hand,
first to the public school, and if there incorrigible, then to the
reform school. Those who need education most and prize it
least are fit subjects for coercion, when all persuasives are in
vain. The great influx of this foreign element has so far
changed the condition of society as to require new legislation
to meet the new exigency. The logic of events demands the
recognition of compulsion, for we have imported parents so im-
bruted as to compel their young children to work for their grog,
and even to beg and steal in the streets when they should be in
school.

** Compulsory education is monarchical in its origin and his-
tory." Common as is this impression, it is erroneous to say
**It is an exotic, a plant of foreign growth which can never be
transplanted here." In Connecticut, certainly, it is indigenous,
and for more than a century it grew with the vigor of a native
stock. Massachusetts and Connecticut may justly claim to be
the first States in the world to establish the principle of compul-
sory education. On this point their earliest laws were most
rigid. They need but slight modification to adapt them to the
changed circumstances of the present Before the peace of
Westphalia, before Prussia existed as a kingdom, and while
Frederick William was only ^''elector of Brandenberg," Massa-
chusetts and Connecticut adopted coercive education. The
Connecticut code of 1650 comprised the most stringent provi-
sions for compulsory education. The selectmen were required
to see that so much '^ harbarisrn' was not permitted in any
family ** as that their children should not be able perfectly to
read the English tongue .... upon penalty of twenty
shillings for each neglect therein." "If after 'the said fines
paid or levied, the said officers shall still find a continuance
of the former negligence, every such parent may be summoned
to the next court of magistrates, who are to proceed as they
find cause, either to a greater fine, or may take such children

88 LEGAL PEEVENTION OP ILLITERACY.

from such parents and place them for years, boys till they
come to the age of one-and-twenty, and girls till they come to
the age of eighteen years, with such others who shall better
educate and govern them, both for the public convenience
and for the particular good of the said children."

In our early history, public opinion so heartily indorsed the
principle of compulsory attendance, or rather, so thoroughly
accepted the necessity of universal education and so generally
desired and secured it for children and wards, that attendance
lost its involuntary character. No doubt the law itself origin-
ally contributed to diffuse and deepen this sentiment If at
first it was the cause, it became at length only the expression
of public opinion. . The requirement of this law, that " the har-
harism'^ of ignorance should not be tolerated in any family,
helped to make it disgraceful to keep even an apprentice from
school To bring up a child or ward in ignorance was shameful
and barbarous in the eyes of our fathers. This is still the senti-
ment of the genuine "Yankee." High appreciation of educa-
ition is one of the most precious traditions of New England.
To it we owe our growth, prosperity and liberty. But now we
are a polyglot people. Immigrants from every nation of Europe
abound, and some have come from Asia and the islands of the
sea. The Germans and the Jews, the Hollanders, Scotch,
Swedes and Swiss, almost without exception, and most of the
Irish, favor universal education. But there have come among
us many, ignorant themselves, and caring not if their children
grow up like them. They are so ignorant as to be insensible
to the evils of illiteracy. Yet, on the other hand, there is a
growing number of immigrants, who, realizing how they have
suffered all their lives from ignorance, desire a good education
for their children.

The most plausible objection to such a law is that it would
sometimes bring hardship upon poor parents. But the Connec-
ticut law provides for extreme cases, and authorizes the school
officers to make such exceptions as necessity may require. No
public officers wiU show more sympathy for the poor than they.
In their hands the administration of the law will be kind and
paternal. The right to enforce will be used mainly as an argu-
ment to persuade — ^an authoritative appeal to good sense and

LEGAL PREVENTION OF ILLITERACY. 89

parental pride. If any parents are too poor to send their chil-
dren to school, individual charities or town benefactions cannot
be better expended than for their relief Pauperism cannot
always be prevented, but illiteracy may be. Even paupers
should not be left to transmit their pauperism, by robbing their
children of the sacred rights of education. If the schooling of
all should involve some hardships, evils more and greater far
would follow from ignorance. Better stint the stomach for
three months a year than famish the mind for lifa There need
be, and in this land of plenty there would be, no starvation to
the body, while that education is insured which will lessen the
amount of hardship and poverty a thousand-fold.

It has been objected that the school system has taken so deep
a root in. the sympathies and social habits of the German people
that attendance would be just as large without the law as it is
now. It may be so. But so far from being an objection, this
fact is strong proof of the efficiency of that law which has itself
helped to create so healthful a public sentiment Were the law
to be abrogated to-morrow, the individual and general interest
in public education would remain. The same might have been
said of Connecticut for more than one hundred and seventy
years after the adoption of compulsory education. During all
that period, a native of this State, of mature age and sound
mind, unable to read the English language, would have been
looked upon as a prodigy. Such a citizen of the old New
England stock I have never met Still, in Connecticut, as well
as in Germany, it was the law itself which greatly aided in
awakening public interest, and in fixing the habits, associations
and traditions of the people.

It has been said that, ** In some countries, without any coer-
cive law, the attendance is as good as in Prussia or Saxony with
such a law." This is simply a mistake. Holland has been
cited as an illustration of this statement But while the Dutch
show commendable zeal for public schools, the attendance is
not relatively so large as in Prussia, and illiteracy is by no
means so rare as in Germany. But Holland haa^ indirectly, a
system of compulsory attendance. It denies certain immunities
and privileges and honors to the uneducated. The parents of
children who are not instructed up to the required standard

90 LEGAL PREVENTION OF ILLITERACY.

cannot receive relief from certain charitable institutions. • The
ban of legal condemnation falls upon them as truly, though not
so eflfectively, as in Prussia.

In Rotterdam, Hague, Amsterdam, and else\yhere in Holland,
I was assured that the working classes regard the school law as
practically compulsory. No one is permitted to teach even a
private school who has not been duly " examined and ap-
proved," and the public supervision includes private as well as
public schools.

The tendency throughout all Europe is more than ever
toward the recognition of the right and duty of the State to
educate its entire population. Public sentiment, educated by
recent events, now connects ignorance with crime and poverty,
with individual and national weakness, as cause and effect.
Sadowa taught Austria, and indeed all Europe, a salutary lesson.
" Defeated in war, let it be our policy to excel in the arts of
peace,'* became the national idea under the inspiration of Count
Beust. There was no wasting of zeal and strength in the mad
cry of revenge, as now in prostrate France. Austria was not
unwilling to learn from an enemy, and adopted the educational
system of her conqueror. Her school system was re-organized
and vitalized, and the principle of compulsory attendance made
prominent Education is obligatory in Denmark, Norway and
Sweden, and also in Switzerland, except in the four small can-
tons of Geneva, Schy wz, Uri and Unterwalden. The total pop-
ulation of these four cantons is less than one-seventeenth that
of the whole nation. The new school law of Italy provides for
both free schools and obligatory attendance, and includes the
following important " Civil Service Reform :" ** No one can be
appointed to any State, Provincial, or Communal office what-
ever, who cannot read and write."

More than thirty years ago, Guizot, in his Educational Re-
port to the French Government, ably opposed obligatory edu-
cation " as the creature of centralization and as one of those
rules which bear the mark of the convent or the barrack,"
but the recent experience of France has changed his views,
and now he is its earnest advocate. That one of his advanced
age, long ranked among the foremost men of France both
as a scholar and statesman, cautious, yet positive in his con-

LEGAL PREVENTION OF ILLITERACY. 91

victions, a historian in liis tastes and studies, and therefore
conservative, should now stoutly advocate that compulsory sys-
tem which he sp successfully opposed when himself the Minis-
ter of Public Instruction, in 1833, is significant The logic of
events during the last forty years proves that the very system
which he largely originated is unsuited to the wants of the
nation and the age. M. Jules Simon, late Minister of Public
Instruction, explained to me his plan for the re-organization of
Primary Instruction, by making it both gratuitous and compul-
sory. The penalties were to be a maximum fine of one hundred
fi'ancs, and loss of suffrage for three years. After the year 1880,
no citizen was to become a voter who could not read and write.
But his bill was promptly rejected at Versailles. While Thiers
proposed an increase of eighty millions in the budget for the
army, he said nothing for education. Even under Napoleon,
fifteen times more was spent for the army than for education,
including Primary, Secondary and Superior. The provisions
for Superior education were liberal, and absorbed nearly one-
half of the whole appropriation, leaving the Primary schools
most meager, both in quantity and quality. The Ultramontane
partj^, now dominant, stoutly oppose both gratuitous and obli-
gatory instruction, and little is likely to be done for the better
education of the masses. The objection that obligatory instruc-
tion would challenge resistance as an act of usurpation, seems
ludicrous in a land where military conscription and the most
rigorous police surveillance are universal and unresisted. Gam-
betta as well as Guizot, and the liberal republicans, strongly
advocate obligatory instruction. Even the Commune favored
universal and compulsory education, as also do the majority of
the Parisians still. The opposition comes from the clerical and
conservative parties.

The new school law of England permits all local Boards to
enforce attendanca Public sentiment throughout England is
now changing rapidly in favor of making compulsory attendance
national and universal, instead of permissiva As one of many
illustrations of the change. Rev. Canon Kingsley, formerly
favoring non-compulsion, now advocates the compulsory prin-
ciple.

92 LEGAL PBEVENTION OF ILLITEEACY.

The motto of the National Educational League, of which
George Dixon, M. P., is President, is, *' Education must be
Universal, Unsectarian, Compulsory." At th^ General Con-
ference of Nonconformists, held in Manchester, January,
1872, and attended by 1,885 delegates, there was great unan-
imity in favor of enforced attendance. This assembly was
as remarkable in its character as its numbers. The argument
of Mr. Jacob Bright, M. P., on this subject was received with
great applause. He said that the best part of the Education
Act, that which is worth all the rest put together, is the per-
mission to compel attendance, which should be the absolute
law throughout the entire kingdom.-

The laboring classes are not opposed to such a law. They
advocate it and would welcome it The fear so often expressed
that compulsory education would be offensive to the laboring
classes as a usurpation of parental and popular rights seems
unfounded. Certainly in Europe the workingmen in their
various conventions show a remarkable unanimity on'this sub-
ject. -At the late International Workingmen's Congress held
at Lausanne, the subject was fully discussed. The sentiment
cordially adopted was, " Education should be universal, com-
pulsory and national, but not denominational." Such declara-
tions of the workingmen refute the objection that the prepo-
sessions of the masses are against obligatory education. Be-
ginning with the Eeformation, and first fully applied in demo-
cratic New England, " on both sides of the ocean it is associated
with the growth of liberty. One of the blows dealt against
the ancient rigime by the French Eevolution was the establish-
ment of compulsory education, showing what was thought
liberal by those to whom liberalism was a matter of life and
death." In England the working classes are asking for a
national compulsory system of education. By invitation of A.
J. Mundella, M. P., I attended the National Trades-Union Con-
gress, held at Nottingham for the week beginning January 8th,
1872. That body seemed unanimous in favor of compulsory
attendance. One of the leading members, an able and effective
speaker, said that in large and crowded assemblies of working-
men he had often distinctly asked, " Do you agree with me
that we want a national compukory system of education?" and

LEGAL PBEVENTION OF ILLITERACY. 93

not a dissenting voice had he ever heard from the working-
men.

The leader in the new organization of the agricultural
laborers of England, Joseph Arch, in a paper read at the last
annual meeting of this National Congress, held in Leeds during
the second week of January, 1878, advocated universal and
compulsory education. Himself a farm laborer, he wafc denied
early school advantages. From his own bitter experience he
is led strongly to condemn the virtual exclusion of children
from school by their constant employment in factories, farms
and workshops. ** Child labor means pauperism, crime, igno-
rance, immorality and every evil," is his motto. Joseph Arch,
who taught himself to read, aided only by some associate mem-
bers of the *' Primitive Methodist" Church, may be fairly
regarded as a representative of the laboring classes. Gifted by
nature, he has already become the idol of the farm laborers, and
eminent members of Parliaijaent, like Samuel Morley, Geo.
Dixon, Thomas Hughes, Lord Fitzmaurice, the Hon. Auberon
Herbert, and others, are openly co-operating with him. The
Congress at Leeds heartily endorsed and supported his views.

The latest reports from England show that the attendance has
increased most in those towns which adopted the compulsory
system. This plan is no longer an experiment in England.
The absence of all opposition from the lower classes, and the
good effects already witnessed, commend this measure to gen-
eral favor. It is expected that the permissive clause will be
dropped by the next Parliament, and compulsory attendance
be made universal.

In the discussion of the Education Act Amendment Bill, in
Parliament, during the present summer, Mr. W. E. Forster, the
author of the original bill and Head of the National Educa-
tional Department, speaks of himself as long since ** an advo-
cate of compulsory education. It is due to myself to say
that as regards compulsory attendance I have personally the
same opinion as that which I expressed in debate last year.
It is my conviction that direct compulsion might be safely
made the general law for England and Wales. But I do not
deny, that if we are mistaken in this opinion, a premature step
would be fatal to our own cause." The National School Sys-

94 LEGAL PEEVENTION OF ILLITERACY.

tern of England, being not yet three years old, requires careful
nursing in its infancy. The schools are not free, but supported
in part by a small rate or tuitional chargd Mr. Forster adds,
" Compulsion must fail if we try to punish a parent who is too
poor to pay a school fee, for not sending his child to school.
There are in the kingdom at least 200,000 children of school
age, of aiU'doars pauperSj I fear there are more, — and from among
these children come a large proportion of those whose educa-
tion is neglected." The required fees or tuitional charge
furnish the most serious obstacle in the way of enforced atten-
dance. Let the schools be made free as everywhere in Switzer-
land and the United States, and this great difficulty vanishes.
The fear that it would tend to pauperize the people to give
schooling free to all is groundless. When schools are supported
by taxation, all contribute alike in proportion to their means.
Instead of pauperizing the people, it liberalizes and enriches
them. In Switzerland, the land of free schools, there is less
pauperism than in any other country of Europe. "The school
fee " or rate-bill, as it was here called, was fully tried in many
American States, for long periods and under varying circum-
stances, and it was everywhere " found wanting." All experi-
ence in this country fevors free schools, and this is now the
universal system in the United States. Wherever repealed,
the rate-bill has never been re-enacted, and the free system
once tried has been retained.

It is admitted that the school fees repel large numbers from
the schools of England, and form the chief hindrance to the
compulsory system. On this subject the test of experience
was decisive in Connecticut, when in 1870 the first years' trial of
free schools showed a great increase of attendance, and proved
that nearly 6000 children had been regularly kept from school,
by the " odious rate-biU," which was almost unanimously con-
demned by the people as burdensome to the poor, imposing an
unequal tax upon those more blessed with children than in
their basket and store, becoming a tax upon parental affection
and a barrier between poverty and intelligence.

Experience has disproved the objection that free schools
would lessen the interest and responsibility of parents. The
argument was, that men never value what costs them nothing.

LEGAL PREVENTION OF ILLITERACY. 95

But the fact is that all parents do pay, according to their
means, their fair and equal share for the support of this
central public interest. This system not only enhances the
interest of the parent, but dignifies the school in the esteem
of the pupils, and quickens the educational spirit of the whole
peopla Every tax payer, having contributed his share to the
support of the schools, even if it be only his poll-tax, naturally
looks after this investment. Such was our theory, and now we
say such is the fact The school registers show a great increase
in the number of visits of parents to the schools. The united
testimony of teachers and school officers affirms the quickened
sympathy and zeal of parents. Their visits to the school-room
are always welcome. Where all ai*e partners in the concern,
none need be debarred by fear of intrusion. Our best teachers
most cordially welcome the visits of even the humblest pa-
rents. There is ample evidence that the "free system" has
in many ways increased the efficiency and popularity of public
schools. Such it is confidently believed would be the result
in England. Then the compulsory system would work as well
there as in Switzerland.

CULTUEE AND KNOWLEDGE.

The motto of President Woolsey so mach applauded at the
last commencement of Yale Colliege, applies to the College no
more than to the Common School In the primary classes as
truly as in the University, " we should place character before
culture and culture before knowledge."

The theory of Education is. an important subject of investi-
gation for teachers and school officers. While there is general
agreement as to the end of Collegiate studies, widely different
views still prevail in regard to the primary purpose of a Com-
mon School education, and of course, to the processes of attain-
ing it, for the theory of education which is adopted will sub-
ordinate all the processes t-o itself. Correct views on this sub-
ject are of the utmost consequence. It is veiy desirable that
parents as well as teachers and School Officers should investi-
gate this topic and acquire definite and settled views upon it,
in order that there may be harmony of plans and sentiments,
and efficient cooperation between them.

Complaints are sometimes urged against teachers for intro-
ducing Object Lessons, Drawing, and Map-Drawing, "Mental
Combinations" iu Arithmetic, various blackboard exercises.
Lessons in English Language and Literature, with the memor-
izing of choice selections in poetry and prose, and other im-
proved methods of instruction which now have the sanction
of the most experienced and successful educators. These ob-
jections arise from the novelty of the measures adopted and
the fact that the reasons that favor them are not yet understood.

As all truth is in harmony, so the best processes of acquiring
truth accord with the conditions of mental growth. The true
processes to develop each faculty of the juvenile mind are
identical with the best methods both of gaining and retaining
knowledge. The alphabet itself is learned most rapidly, when
it is used as a means of observing and remembering given
sounds and forms. The teacher who aims thus to train the

CULTURE AND^ KNOWLEDG'E. 97

ear, the eye and tlie voice, makes short as well as pleasant
work of the a, b, c's. Even the simple exercise of spelling
may and should be disciplinary. With beginners, spelling
should be the chief exercise, commenced the first day of school
attendance before they have completed the alphabet, and as
soon as three or four letters are learned. The early printing of
words on the slate and blackboard imprints their form on the
memory, thus training both the eye and the hand. Increasing
observation confirms my belief that the art of spelling may be
essentially completed under twelve years of age.

The memory changes with our years and acquisitions. In
early life it is circumstantial, at a later period, philosophical ;
that is, the little child naturally and easily grasps items and
details, like words and their forms. In riper years, while the
memory grows more tenacious of principles, comprehensive
fiicts, general truths and classifications, it retains such minutiae
with difficulty. While the reflective faculties are yet latent
and the child is unprepared for grammar or any study specially
exercising these faculties, and when the perceptive powers are
most active, is the favorable time for the mastery of spelling.
Though the child can now do little in any of the higher studies,
he can accomplish most in this. Spelling and reading go
together. If early and rightly taught, spelling more than any-
thing else will facilitate reading. As the most important study
in the elementary school, the latter deserves far more promi-
nence, as well as improved methods of teaching it It is no
exaggeration to say that four-fold more time should be devoted
to this fundamental study in the primary school. In compari-
son with its importance^ no subject is usually so much neglected
and so poorly taught.

In visiting many thousand schools for the last twenty years,
I have had occasion to observe how generally proficiency in
this one department infuses new interest into every other
study and elevates the whole school. Such results often wit-
nessed seem to demonstrate the wisdom and necessity of the
change above named. What a revolution would be seen in
our higher schools and with all advanced classes if the dreaded
" drudgery " of spelling and the difficulties of mere reading,
I do not here speak of elocution — were completed under ten

98 CULTURE AND KNOWLEDGE.

or twelve years of age. The ability to recognize ordinary
words at sight, and thus read with rapidity and without con-
scious effort, gives to the juvenile mind the encouragement and
impetus which it then most needs. This is the surest method
to facilitate all other and higher studies, for early mastery of
this art fosters a love of reading and a fondness for books, while
aversion to study and hatred of school are often produced by
tasking children in grammar and kindred studies, before they
can readily read and understand them. Ouce implant a love
of reading, and you have a strong pledge of scholarship
through life.

Instead of being a monotonous and mechanical drill, spelling,
by a great variety of methods, should be made an attractive
and intellectual exercise ; pursued not merely to learn the lite-
ral elements of words, but for the higher aim of cultivating
the eye and conceptive faculty, acquiring the power to bring
before the mind's eye the form of a word as a unit, as it looks
on the printed page, just as one would so carefully examine a
robin, a dog, a rose or a picture, as to be able vividly to recall
the image of the object It is a great and most important art
to see so accurately, that one's conception of visible objects
may ever be as clear and distinct as were the original percep-
tions. This process early developed in spelling may be repeated
at will in reference to any objects of perception and descrip-
tion, and thus the child gains a new and invaluable power
which enters into all the graver operations of the mind in natu-
ral science, history, poetry, and the fine arte. The principle
which I have illustrated in regard to the alphabet and spelling
is of general application. Any and every study is more thor-
oughly mastered when it is pursued not as an end, but as a
means of the higher end of mental culture.

Many parente seem to labor under the mistaken impression,
that the attainment of knowledge is the first if not the only
thing to be aimed at in school, while the training of the faculties
is regarded as a matter of secondary importance. The power
of repeating, parrot-like, what has been crowded into the mem-
ory, is looked upon as the highest evidence of scholarship.
The quantity, rather than the quality of attainment, is with
them the test of improvement The great work of education

OULTUEE AND KNOWLEDGE. 99

is thus reduced to a mere system of mnemotechny. Instead of
seeking to discipline and develop the faculties of the pupil, his
mind is treated as a mere receptacle, which is somehow— and in
their view it matters little how — to be filled.

It is not strange that where such views prevail, a mechanical
method of instruction should be followed, which goes through a
certain routine of mnemonic exercises, without any definite aim
to train the mind and awaken thought and reflection. Nor
should it be a matter of surprise, when we witness the legiti-
mate results of such a system, and see pupils pass through the
ordinary course of study with little control over their minds,
utterly deficient in the power of application, with little interest
in study, and without any purpose or prospect of future improve-
ment. Thus the most ample and varied acquisitions become of
little worth, because there is no power to use them, to arrange
and classify them, and form new combinations. For it is the
power of using the faculties and resources of the mind, in which
lies the secret of success.

The elements of the several branches may be fixed indelibly
in a child's memory ; he may even have the leading facts and
principles of the sciences upon his tongue's end, and become a
walking encyclopedia, and yet be only a learned driveler. He
can tell you what he has read or heard, and nothing more.
Take him off the beaten track, ask him any inference from the
stores which he has gained meinoriter, and he is dumb. He
has not learned to think for himself, nor ever dreamed that the
great object of study is to draw out and exercise the various
faculties of the mind.

The habit of learning words and formal propositions without
understanding their meaning, is still too prevalent in our schools.
This practice arises fi^om the mistaken theory of education
under consideration. Such superficial attainments are always
chaotic, and sometimes worse than useless. They lead the pupil
complacently to imagine that he has the substance, when he
has only the shell and semblance of knowledge. He has stud-
ied the book, but not the subject of which it treats. A sense
of our ignorance is the first step towards knowledge ; but a
system of instruction which leads pupils to over-estimate their
attainments, fosters conceit and indolence, and removes the
incentives to study.

100 CULTURE AND KNOWLEDGE.

Our schools still suffer greatly from too frequent changes in
teachers, involving confiision and discouragement, if not retro-
gression, in the school, and sacrificing system, efficiency and
progress. When a teacher thus retains a school for a single
term only, he finds it much easier to hear recitations repeated
by rote, than to secure a thorough comprehension of the prin-
ciples which they involve. He is strongly tempted to overtask
the memory, for the sake of flattering parents with the desired
tokens of progress. This course is more productive of imme-
diate and showy results* It is supposed to make a fine display
at examinations. Hence the lesson must be committed to
memory, whether understood or not. The pupils must rehearse
fluently, although, to borrow a simile of Lord Bolingbroke,
"they rattle on as meaningless as alarm-clocks that have been
prematurely sprung.''

In reference to the permanency of their teachers, Germany
and Switzerland greatly excel us. On no other point did I
hear our system so generally and justly criticized by promi-
nent educators of other countries as in regard to the frequent
changes of teachers in the rural portions of America. They were
puzzled by the fact that our educational reports so often speak
of the " wages " instead of " salaries " of teachers as is the case
everywhere abroad — our wages being so much a iveek or month.
like those of changeable farm or factory hands. Rev. Edward
Ryerson, D.D , the able Superintendent of Education for On-
tario, from personal observations, thoroughly conversant with
American schools, gives a friendly but well-merited criticism
of our system in this particular. As he fully appreciates the
excellences of our schools wherever they are not marred by
this radical defect, and as by the improvements introduced into
the schools of Canada West, under his administration, he has
practically demonstrated that even the rural districts may over-
come this difficulty, I commend his words and this example
of Ontario, to all friends of educational progress :

"Now, whatever may be the liberality of Legislatures,
and the framework of the school system, and the patriotic as-
pirations and efforts of great numbers of citizens, in such a
system of temporarily employing and perpetually changing
teachers, there can be no material improvement in the qualifi-

CULTURE AND KNOWLEDGE. 101

cations of teachers or the efficiency of the schools, or the edu-
cation of the country youth ; but the lamentations in the
annual Reports of State Superintendents will, in my opinion,
be the next ten years what they have been the last ten years.

In Ontario there is much room for improvement in these
respects ; but we have a national programme for the examina-
tion and distinct classification of teachers, and nearly uniform
methods of examination ; our teachers, except in comparatively
few cases of trial, are almost universally employed by the year,
in the townships equally with the cities and towns. By our
method of giving aid to no school unless kept open six months of
a year, and aiding all schools in proportion to the average atten-
dance of pupils and length of time the school is kept open, we
have succeeded in getting our schools throughout the whole
country kept open nearly eleven months out of the twelve ; the
teachers are thus constantly employed, and paid annual sala-
ries ; and are as well paid, all things considered, in perhaps a
majority of the country schools, as in cities and towns. Some
of our best teachers are employed in country schools, a very
large proportion of which will favorably compare, in style and
fittings of school-house, and efficiency of teaching, with the
schools in cities and towns. Indeed, for several years at the
commencement of our school system, the country parts of Upper
Canada took the lead, with few exceptions, of our cities, towns
and villages. Our deficiences and shortcomings in these re-
spects I shall plainly point our hereafter ; but they appear to
me to be more palpable, and to exist to a vastly greater, and
even fatal extent, among our American neighbors — so worthy
of our admiration in many of their industries and enterprises."

This glaring evil of perpetual change claims special attention.
In chemistry, in the arts and agriculture, experiments, however
expensive, are often necessary and useful Persevering trials
and repeated failures usually precede and sometimes suggest
valuable inventions. But of all experimenting, the most need-
less, costly and fruitless, and yet the most common, is the
practice of " placing a new hand at the wheel " annually, or
even twice a year, in oar school-houses. When passing Hurl
Gate in a severe storm, I observed how much the apprehen-
sions of timid passengers were quieted by the simple state-

1

102 CULTURE AND KNOWLEDGE.

ment, "our good captain has run safely on this Sound for
forty years." The assurance that an experienced hand guided
the helm, at once inspired hope and confidence. But if false
economy, prejudice, caprice or favoritism placed new captains
or pilots twice a year on our noble "Sound Steamers," how
soon would they be condemned and forsaken by an indignant
public. And yet not a few committees in our districts, from
mere whim, or pique, or more often from open nepotism, prac-
tice a system of change in teachers which introduces confusion,
waste, weakness, discouragement, and often retrogression, in
place of system, economy, efficiency and progress. This is a
prolific source of the most serious defects now hindering the
usefulness of American schoola True, there has been an en-
couraging advance for some years in respect to the permanency
of teachers. But my own observation; convinces me that there
is a pressing need of far greater progress in this direction.

There are towns which retain the old system, of semi-annual
changes, male teachers in the winter and female i,ai the summer,
and even in each successive summer and winter the same
teachers are too seldom reemployed. In such places I fiijd the
schools in the lowest condition, with n,o uniform methods, nor
well arranged plan consistently and persistently sustained.
This system, or rather want of system, is, to so great an extent,
sacrificing the benefits of experience, and hiaidering thoroughness
of instruction, that the subject demands the consideration of the
people. Iji no other way can the genuine improvement of our
schools be so easily and economically secured as by employing
better qualified and more permanent teachers.

It often requires nearly a term to initiate a< new teacher into
the policy of the school visitors, who officially direct his course.
He cannot perhaps in less time correct the mistakes and bad
habits formed under his predecessor, and get his own plans and
processes fully into operation, and the result is very likely to be
neglect of system. The conviction that there will not be time to
carry out any settled policy, and that, if commenced, it maybe
wholly counteracted by an incompetent successor, discourages
the attempt It has long been a conceded point among success-
ful teachers, that a. second term in the same school is worth at
least one-third more than the first The school-room is the

CULTURE AND KNOWLEDGE. 103

most unfortunate place for those experiments which "rotation
in office" must here involve — entailing a dead loss of more
than thirty per cent of the expenditures made for schools.

A teacher must learn the characters of his pupils, intellectual
and moral, before he can successftdly teach them. He must
make each child a study, and discover both the faults and ex-
cellences of his heart, and the difficult and easy processes of
his mind. He must avail himself of every means to find out
his entire character, as a discriminating physician watches
closely all the symptoms of his patient, in order to understand
what ought to be done for him. Until he knows the peculiari-
ties, the attainments and wants- of each pupil, he cannot adapt
himself to them, and must woi'k in the dark. There is a great
variety of methods of illustrating and simplifying each branch
and lesson, and only the teacher who understands both his pro-
fession and the character of his pupils, can adapt these count-
less varieties of method to the endless diversities of mind and
character. The difficulty of understanding little children is
exceeded only by its importance. The internal history of a
child is veiled from us, because it no longer lies within the
view of our present consciousness and experience. In our
eagerness to "put away childish things," we too soon forget
how we " spake as a child," " understood as a child," and
"thought as a child." By putting himself in the place of his;
pupil, and becoming literally child-like, renewing his youth,,
and by the help of imagination where memory fails, reproduc-
ing his own early feelings, impressions, difficulties, and varjring
experience, the teacher can best prepare himself to appreciate:
the instinctive tendencies, dangers, weaknesses, wants and
primal aspirations of the juvenile mind and heart He who
can thus come down where children are, and be a child again,
instead of growing old in heart with advancing years, will ever
maintain that rare grace and beautiful ornament of age, the ver^
nal freshness of youthful feeling. Such vivid reminiscences of
childhood, and such knowledge of the juvenile character, bring
the teacher into close contact and conscious sympathy with his
pupils, open their hearts, secure their confidence, and win their*
lova

The man who retains a school for a single term only has little
opportunity or motive to acquire this accurate discernment of

104 CULTURE AND KNOWLEDGE.

character, this sympathy and sensil^ility to penetrate the youth-
ful spirit and arouse its dormant faculties, this keen apd prac-
ticed eye to discern what motives to urge upon this pupil, what
passions to repress in that, what habits to check in one, what
good tendencies to foster in another, what weak points to
strengthen here, and what peculiar gifts to develop there. The
teacher must thoroughly understand his pupils before he can
discover, in each particular case, the best methods to subdue
the obstinate, to stimulate the indolent, to arouse the stupid,
to make the careless hunger and thirst for knowledge, and to
win the confidence and aflfections of alL Surely, this is a great
work, in which the most exalted talents, enriched by the treas-
ures of science and experience, will find ample employment for
all their resources. However large the school, the teacher
should regard an intimate knowledge of each pupil as essential
to his thorough instruction. This knowledge cannot be obtained
intuitively, nor by the facile process of phrenology. It is the
result of patient and long-continued observation of individual
children, and it is well worth all the labor it costs. This most
valuable acquisition belongs only to the permanent teacher. It
is his most available capital. Some days usually pass before a
stranger in the school-room learns the names and former classi-
JScation of his pupils. Weeks or months are gone before he is
sfiilly prepared to judge of the propriety of this classification ;
and then so little time of his short term remains that it seems
inexpedient to introduce any changes, however much they may
l)e needed.

How different is the position of the permanent teacher on re-
<opening his school. He is cordially greeted, and welcomed as a
friend and benefactor, by the pupils, whose respect and love he
has won. He knows every class and every scholar. On the
{first day the school is in working order. The teacher and
?scholars alike enter upon the new term without any abatement of
interest, and at the outset he is able to suit his modes of instruc-
tion to the character and standing of each pupil. The teacher,
for the time being, stands in the place of the parent And
what results would be realized in the family, were a new step
father or step-mother to be semi-annually invested with parental
.^.uthority ? The picture of anarchy and alienation which this

CULTUBE AND KNOWLEDGE. 105

question suggests need not here be drawn. The evil is hardly
less serious in the school than it would be in the household.
What would be the eflfect of a semi-annual change of clerks and
book-keepers in our mercantile establishments, or of agents and
overseers in our manufactories, or of financiers in our banks, or
of masters of our merchantmen, or commanders of our iron-
clads, or of doctors in our families, or of pastors in our parishes?
Shrewd men never made such blunders in business matters, al-
though such frequent changes would be less disastrous to material
enterprises than they are to the best interests of schools. Let
us not practically deny the value of experience in the most vital
interests committed to our charge, the training of our children.
It often appears to' be the chief aim of our transient teachers,
and still more generally of parents, to secure simply a rapid
rehearsal of lessons and text-books, as if the repetition of the
words with a voluble tongue was evidence of the acquirement
and comprehension of the thoughts. But it is doing violence
to the soul, to its innate love of truth, and of gi'owth by the
nutriment of truth, to feed it thus with the mere husks of
knowledge, rather than knowledge itself. Such training is
quite as likely to make pupils flippant as fluent. They learn
everything, and know nothing. They pursue too many studies
at a time, and are encouraged to enter upon advanced studies
before they understand the simple rudiments. They forget
that true progress depends less on the number of branches pur-
sued, than on the thoroughness with which a few are mastered.
Undertaking to learn too much, they become smatterers in
everything; Their acquirements are as superficial as they are
extensive. Their knowledge will be more apt to make them
wordy than wise ; and,

" Words are like leaves, and where they most abound.
Much fruit of sense is rarely found."

They seem to act upon the principle that ** knowledge is power,"
but not in the sense of the great author of the maxim, who
also tells us that ** knowledge is the concoction of reading into
judgTYienty

This system of instruction tends to inflate pupils with an
over-estimate of their attainments, and such conceit as an ele-
ment of juvenile character obviously has other tendencies.

106 CULTURE AND KNOWLEDGE.

quite as pernicious as those to which I have referred. But the
appropriate effect of true mental discipline and the highest cul-
ture is not self-admiration, but modesty, since the first lesson
which science teaches is the greatness of our ignorance «nd the
littleoess of our knowledge. It has been well said, " the greater
the circle of our knowledge, the greater the horizon of ignor-
ance that bounds it" Those who, flushed with their fancied
achievements, are already complacently reposing on the very
pinnacle of science, are invited to spend a little of their ample
leisure in pondering a couplet of Cowper :

" Knowledge is proud that he has learned so much ;
Wisdom is humble that he knows no more."

In plain terms, the conceit of wisdom is in inverse ratio
to one's attainments. The less he knows, the more he thinks
he knows. To the embodiments of self-satisfaction only, " a
little learning is a dangerous thing." That pupil has not yet
advanced far, who has not learned enough to know that his
highest acquisitions are yet meagre indeed. The truly learned
man feels that his knowledge is but a drop out of the bound-
less ocean of truth. Thus, for example, Socrates represented
his knowledge as nothing ; Bishop Butler compared his to a
point ; and Newton his to a few pebbles which a child picks
up on the shore.

The prevalent evils to which I have adverted, are the natural
results of an erroneous but common idea as to the primary
objects of education. This error is fundamental It would
greatly impair the best system of instruction. A want of
agreement and of concurrent action on this point is frequently
the occasion of serious embarrassment, even to the best teach-
ers. The most judicious instructors are particularly liable to
incur the complaints and objections of parents, because their
children are "put back." One of the greatest obstacles to
thoroughness, and one which the most successful teachers are
continually encountering, is found in the impatience of pupils
at reviews, encouraged and sustained by the eagerness of par-
ents to have them get through the text-books.

It should therefore be a familiar maxim in all common
school instruction, that while the object of education is always
two-fold, discipline of the mind is more important than storing

CULTURE AND KNOWLEDGE. 107

it with facts. However valuable these may be, they should be
learned, not primarily for their own sake, but as instruments
for forming right mental habits. All the teacher's plans and
methods of instruction should be modified by the paramount
consideration that the prescribed studies are to be pursued, not
as ends, so much as means, to the higher end of disciplining
and developing the mental powers. Knowledge is indeed
essential to education, but, as we have already shown, does
not constitute it If right habits of mental activity and self-
reliance are formed, knowledge will come in due time, as a
matter of course ; and any degree of knowledge, without men-
tal discipline, will be of little use. The process of pure *' cratn ''
attains little genuine knowledge and retains less, while the tru6
method of study gains the richest acquisitions and has them
ever at command. It is the discipline of the intellectual and
moral faculties that constitutes the man, and gives him hid
individual character and power. It is by means of this dis-
cipline that he will be able to excel in any pursuit or pro-
fession.

Now the object of the Common School is not to finish the
education, but to lay the foundation for future and higher
attainments ; to teach the pupil how to study, and to inspire
him with a love of learning. If this be done, he will, for the rest,
educate himself He will feel that his education is only begun,
when his school days are ended. To complete it will be the
aim and pleasure of his life. Place him where you will, let his
calling be what it may, he will find leisure for study, and will
feel an insatiable desire for self-improvement. The child can
ordinarily be so trained that he will be a scholar through life,
and occupy the intervals of labor or business engagements in
the cherished work of mental improvement This great end of
study should determine the methods of instruction. Such dis-
cipline is not to be gained by learning a few text-books by rote,
nor by any degree of skill in mnemonics. It is the result of
mental discipline, secured by close application and the thorough
understanding of every branch pursued.

From what has been said, it is obvious that it is the teacher!s
chief business to see, not how much he can get into the heads
of his pupils, but how much he can get out of them. Draw-

108 CULTURE AND KNOWLEDGE.

ing out is, in the end, the best way to put in. The culture of
the mind is to be measured not by what it contains, but by
what it can do. Efficiency is the proper test of mental im-
provement. Hence the teacher should make every effort to
awaken and sustain a spirit of self-reliance. He should throw
the pupil upon his own resources, and make him feel that he
must train himself by his own efforts. In reference to educa-
tion it is pre-eminently true, that " every one is the architect
of his own fortuna" In the breast of each pupil are the germs
of those plastic faculties, which he can mould and shape as he
will, and which, if rightly trained, will secure his usefulness
and happiness. They are always the best taught who in the
highest sense of the term are self-taught, who make use of the
lessons of their teachers, chiefly as guides in the work of self-
training. The best scholars in our schools are those who lean
least upon their instructors, and rely most upon themselves.

It is the teacher's office not so much to impart knowledge as
to show his pupils how to get it ; to give a strong impulse to
their minds, and lead them, in conscious self-reliance, to put
forth their utmost energies. He will thus inspire them with a
love of study and delight in mastering difficulties, till they feel
all the incitements of victors, and are encouraged to go on from
conquest to conquest.

To train a school to such habits of study, is no easy task.
Under the most favorable circumstances, it will involve great
difficulty and demand persevering effort. The accomplish-
ment of this one result is the greatest achievement of the suc-
cessful teacher. It is the cardinal secret of a good education.
These principles should guide committees and boards of educa-
tion in the selection of teachers ; and any one who, on trial, is
found to lack this important faculty, however excellent in
other respects, and however popular in the district, is not equal
to the responsible task assumed. It is a radical defect, for
which no degree of literary attainments or suavity of manners
can compensate.

Boys or girls educated on the system advocated above can
hardly fail of success, when they pursue, in a like spirit, their
appropriate callings in life. They will have clear ideas, and
know what they are talking about when they speak at all. If

CULTUKE AND KNOWLEDGE. 109

they undertake to write, they will be capable of concentrating
their powers upon a given subject, and will write sensibly, and
to the point If they are called, in the business of life, to
decide in some novel emergency, they will think accurately,
and decide promptly, for a thoroughly disciplined mind will
always furnish a clue for the solution of the problem. Such a
mind, even when overtaken by a perplexing combination of cir-
cumstances, will not resolve on one thing to-day, and to-mor-
row the opposite ; nor begin to doubt and waver as soon as any
thing positive has been determined upon. It is not difiScult to
recognize such a person as well in a brief conversation as in
the whole course of life. He is distinguishable, at a glance,
from those who are forever lingering among unexecuted reso-
lutions and abandoned projects, always making up their
minds, but never reaching a fixed and an abiding conclusion.
Those who are alternately drawn in opposite directions soon
find their efforts frustrating one another, and come to feel de-
meaned in their own eyes. Conscious that they are powerless,
they have neither the heart to attempt nor the force to accom-
plish anything. Such instances of fickleness are not rara It
is a tendency against which our youth need to be guarded with
special care. The erroneous theory of education under con-
sideration directly fosters fickleness, while thorough mental dis-
cipline imparts unity and force to the character. Without such
discipline, a man will not think for himself, he will waver and
hesitate, now almost persuaded, and soon not persuaded at
alL He will have neither accurate discrimination nor sound
judgment; he may be very* learned in appearance, but never
strong, seU-relying and original.

THE PEOFESSIONAL STUDY.

Among the practical studies for teachers, Mental Philosophy
is foremost Teaching never can and never ought to rise to
the dignity of a profession with those who do not practically
recognize this science as its foundation. Its relation to Didac-
tics has not been duly appreciated, and as a natural result, it
has received too little attention in the training of teachers. Its
advantages may not merely be inferred from the intrinsic
interest and dignity of the scienca It has special adaptations
to the wants and daily work of the teacher.

This study will he of preiminent service to the teacher in his own
mental discipline. Just views of the powers, capacities, and
laws of the mind are obviously conducive to self culture, for
they reveal the conditions of its growth . Philosophy is as old
as the race, and is a necessity of man. Every thinker will
have some philosophy. Certainly the teacher should have a
definite system, for his philosophy, whatever it may be, will
mould his plans for self-improvement, and shape his efforts
for the training of others. He must cease to think, if he
abjure all philosophy. As he will hold and consciously or
unconsciously apply some theories of mind and its culture, it
is a question of paramount interest whether these principles are
true or false, partial or systematic, mastered as a science, by
the study of the book and the living subject, or picked up
incidentally, intelligently and persistently applied to a well
chosen end, or casually and unconsciously employed, without
reference to a definite result That is most valuable in education
which sets the mind to the most intense activity. No science
is better adapted to sharpen, energize, and expand the mind,
and form habits of attention, discrimination, and reflection.
The study of its great principles, comprehending the sublimest
subjects of human thought, is fitted to awaken a love of truth,
of investigation and discovery, and to free the mind from the
thralldom of trivialities.

THE PROFESSIONAL STUDY. Ill

Mental Philosophy is of interest to teachers^ as one of the appro-
priate school studies. The common explanation of its neglect in
the preparatory course of teachers is the fact that they are not
required to give instruction in this department. But it will be
found a most ua^ul study iox advanced classes in our high
schools and academies, and many of its leading principles can
be profitably taught in familiar oral lessons to those who have
not sufficient time or maturity to pursue the science. An
important result is gained if pupils are thus led early to watch
the operations of their own minds and to adopt the best meth-
ods of cultivating the Perceptive and Eepresentative Powers,
and of gaining the command of the faculties and the discipline of
the wilL Skillful instruction will initiate processes of observa-
tion and thought which the child will himself delight to repeat,
and by repetition, they will become the fixed and controlling
habits and vitalizing forces of the mind.

A true understanding of the relation of Psychology to Teaching
would greatly modify^ if not revolutionize^ our systems and processes
of instruction. Mental philosophy underlies the whole work of
education, which can claim .the dignity of a science only as it
rests on this broad basis. Among the many practical questions
which this subject suggests to the teacher, are the following :

1. What is the great end of intellectual education, to which
all processes should be strictly subordinate and subservient ?
In the chapter on Culture and Knowledge I have aimed to
show that this is a question of paramount importance. Cor-
rect views on this point will modify and determine all the
teacher's plans and methods. A mistake here would be funda-
mental, and would greatly impair any system of education,
however complete in, other particulars.

2. What are the faculties of the human mind which are to
be educated? The teacher too often assumes the sacred
responsibilities of his profession without a definite outline of
his work. Although it is his great business to operate upon
mind, he has not yet considered the number and nature of the
intellectual powers, and the implements which he is to employ
in all study and science. The physician must understand the
organs and structure of the body, the conditions of growth, the
laws of health, the causes and preventions as well as the reme-

112 MENTAL PHILOSOPHY.

dies of disease.. The law demands this knowledge as essential
to the medical practitioner. Does not the training of the mind
equally require the study of its faculties and their laws of devel-
opment? May the culture of the mind — ^far more subtle and
important than the body — ^be safely entrusted to those who are
ignorant of its nature ? Useful in any profession, this knowl-
edge is essential to the true teacher who lives and mCves and
has his being in the sphere of mind, and whose constant duty
is to mould and develop it

3. What is the order, as to time, in which these faculties are
to be addressed and developed ? This question, though seldom
raised, is most important and practical. When properly an-
swered, it will effect radical changes, especially in primary
schools, and suggest numerous and useful methods of interest-
ing the smallest children. The inquiry so frequently made,
** How can I keep these little ones out of mischief?" receives
only a partial answer in the common direction: — "Give them
something to do." It should rather be the study of the teacher
to find occupations adapted to their years and tastes, accordant
with the natural law of development, and fitted to improve as
well as please. Such, for example, are frequent general exer-
cises, object-lessoiis, exercises in drawing, and the innumerable
expedients well suited to interest children, and at the same
time to train the senses and cultivate observation.

4. What exercises are required for the healthful training of
each faculty ? What processes and directions will be most
conducive to habits of attention, analysis, and classification,
and to the improvement of the Perceptive and Representative
faculties ? These, and many similar questions of equal interest,
belong to the department of Mental Philosophy.

5. What is the relation of the several school studies to the
diflferent faculties of the mind? Each subject of study has
some special adaptations to particular necessities of the juve-
nile mind. The teacher who has duly pondered this question
will no longer employ any text-book or science as an end, but
only as a means to the higher and more important end of dis-
ciplining some particular faculty or faculties of the mind. A
text-book designed to train the reasoning powers will be more
likely to accomplish its object when that paramount end and

THE PROFESSIONAL STUDY. 118

the adaptation of the means are both distinctly before the mind.
When Geography is employed primarily as an instrument of
cultivating observation, conception and memory, the lessons
illustrated on the globes, and the maps mastered hy making them
from memory^ will remain vividly daguerreotyped on the retina
in their exact forms, relations, and proportions ; and, what is
still better, as the result of this intelligent training for a specific
end, the process can be repeated at will, in reference to any
objects of perception and description ; and thus the child gains
a new and invaluable power, which enters into all the graver
operations of the mind, in natural science, history, poetry, and
the fine arts.

6. What is the proper arrangement and succession of
studies ?

My present purpose and space forbid the attempt to answer
these questions. They all grow out of the philosophy of the
mind, and are now presented to indicate its practical bearings.

Psychology will aid the teacher in understanding himself, —
" What of all things is best ?" asked Chilon of the Oracle.
" To know thyself," was the memorable reply. " To know
one's self," reiterated the sages of Greece, " is the hardest and
yet the most important discovery of man." " Man, know thy-
self; all wisdom centres there,'' says a philosophic poet of
modern times. And no words of Bums have met a more gen-
eral response from the world than the familiar couplet :

** Oh, wad some Power the giftie gie us,
To see oursels as others see us.'*

To attain this knowledge of ourselves, the importance of
which has been thus universally conceded in every age, we
must give heed to the testimony of consciousness. Mental
Philosophy is properly called the science of self-reflection, and
its facts are chiefly those which lie under the eye of conscious-
ness. Without the habit of introversion we can know little of
ourselves ; with it we may find the noblest themes of study in
the wonderful mechanism and movements of our own minds,
and in the deepest solitudes verify the aphorism of Swift, " A
wise man is never less alone than when alone," or the words of
Novalis, " A certain degree of solitude seems necessary to the
full growth and spread of the highest mind, and therefore con-

114 MENTAL PHILOSOPHY.

stant intercourse with men will stifle many a holy germ, and
scare away the gods, who shun the restless tumult of merry
companions and the discussion of petty interests."

ThU self-knowledge will aid the teacher in self-control. The first
requisite in the government of others, and especially of chil-
dren, is the command of one's self Self-possession fosters
discretion, decision and firmness, which are the essential ele-
ments of administrative talent The most disastrous conse-
quences in the school-room frequently result from the loss of
self-command. Here the teacher, liable to sudden contingen-
cies and numberless annoyances and provocations, is peculiarly
exposed. At this point of ever-imminent danger should the
trusty sentinel — " self-command " — ^guard with sleepless vigi-
lance. To secure this end, the teacher must know himself ;
especially must his consciousness mirror to him his weak points^
his tendencies to haste, excitement or passion.

The teacher will he compensated for the study of Mental PhUoso-
phy, by his tendency to exalt his estimate of mind, its wonder-
ful nature and priceless worth, its illimitable capacities of
culture, its glory as created in the image of God, its oppor-
tunity of still higher glory in literally becoming a partaker
of the Divine Nature, its power of endless progression in
knowledge and felicity, and the consequent sacredness of the
teacher's daily work.

All natural science is a production of the human mind, and
hence a striking proof of its greatness and glory ;• but no
other science so highly exalts man, no other can so fill and
satisfy the soul, and rise evermore above its soaring thoughts,
no other justify the ancient maxim, — "On earth there is noth-
ing great but man, in man there is nothing great but mind."
Such a clear consciousness of the lofty powers which God has
implanted in the human soul, their laws and capacities of
illimitable expansion, will be a powerful incentive to their
earnest culture.

But while philosophy thus exalts mind, it humbles the man.
It rebukes conceit without impairing self-reliance, and by the
electric affinity of thoroughness and humility forms the best
antidote to the prevailing sciolism and charlatanry of the day,
—ever re-affirming the classic aphorism, " Qui nescit ignorare,

THE PROFESSIONAL STUDY. 115

ignorat scire," — " whoever knows not that he is ignorant, is
not sure that he knows." We here find the true limitation of
human science — the greatness of our ignorance, and the little-
ness of our knowledge. The history of all genuine scholars
confirms the lesson of philosophy,^ — " That the pride of wis-
dom is proof of folly."

" For the pride of man in what he knows
Keeps lessening as his knowledge grows."

As this sense of ignorance is the first step towards knowl-
edge and a constant stimulus to higher attainments, so, on the
other hand, conceit of wisdom enervates the inind and lessens
the incentives to studiousness. Arrogance and assurance bear
no semblance to the firuits of true learning and self-relianca
Yet, from the days of Johnson, " the school-master " has been
characterized in our literature as magisterial, opinionated and
dogmatical, and sometimes, it must be admitted, not without
reason. With all his need of high culture, the business of
the teacher does not enforce the tension of every nerve in the
grapple of mind with mind, as in forensic contests. Asso-
ciated, as teachers habitually are, with beginners, or at least
inferiors in attainments, separated in their professional work
from equals and superiors, there is danger of imbibing the
spirit of conceit, if not of assuming an air of dogmatism.
What is dryer than an old, opinionated, self-satisfied, unpro-
gressive school-master. He despises "all your new-fangled
notions." He glories in the good old ways. He has a glib
tongue indeed, but its monotony is as vapid as it is fluent
His flippant routine feeds his complacency, while it really
enervates his own mind, and stupefies his pupils. Dryasdust
still lives. Whoever, either in the college or primary school,
has ceased to learn, should by all means stop teaching. Chil-
dren need impulse, even more than instruction. Any one who
no longer thirsts for higher knowledge, cannot fitly lead the
youngest to its fountain. As a teacher, one must be progres-
sive, or cease to be at all. The mind that stagnates will soon
retrograde. Such a teacher would serve to stultify rather than
stimulate his class. But, there are teachers worthy of their
work, whose ideal is high, and who are enthusiastic in the life-
long work of personal culture.

116 me;ntal philosophy.

A knowledge of mental philosophy will aid the teacher in school
government This is confessedly the most difficult part of his
work. Even of the graduates of the Normal School it is said,
** The most general as well as the greatest complaint is inabil-
ity to govern." But so far from being peculiar to the Normal
graduates, this is everywhere, and among all classes of teachers,
the most common source of failure. An extensive observation
of schools of all grades, and consultations and correspondence
with parents, and committees, in all parts of the country,
seem to me, after making due allowance for acknowledged
instances of failure, to establish the conclusion that the grad-
uates of Normal Schools have secured more than an average
degree of success in government as well as in instruction.
This superiority is often manifested in improved methods of
influence and discipline, — a matter of the utmost consequence,
though too little noticed by parents and committees. The
value of any given result in school government depends very
much upon the motives which produced it I have seen pupils
benumbed with fear and still as the grave, and heard their
teacher — whose only rule was a reign of terror — ^lauded by
the visitors as a model disciplinarian. The stillest school is
not always the most studious. Pupils may be controlled for
a time by motives which will ultimately debase the character
and enfeeble the will, or they may be stimulated to the highest
effort by incentives which will be healthful and permanent in
their influence upon the mind and heart

School government is a difficult subject to teach by any gen-
eral rules, and yet its intrinsic importance assigns to it the first
place among the preparatory studies of the teacher. It is based
on a thorough and practical knowledge of the laws of mind,
of influence, and motive, the philosophy of the sensibilities
and the wilL

Sagacity in the discernment of character is one of the secrets
of success both in the government and instruction of children.
The surest way to know others is first to know ourselves ; and
if we would understand the juvenile mind — an attainment as
rare as it is important — we must ourselves be children again,
and, so far as possible, recall our earliest feelings, passions,
motives, prejudices, and all our mental processes. He who

THD PBOFESSIONAL STUDY. 117

thus reads himself will readily read others, while ignorance
of one's self presupposes and necessitates a misjudgment of
men. An intimate knowledge of our pupils, — their charac-
teristic traits of mind and heart, their good qualities, and still
more, their evil tendencies and inclinations, will facilitate the
adaptation of motives to their individual necessities.

"I will try to get on the right side of him," said an eminent
teacher in regard to a turbulent boy, whom the School Officers
had determined to expel as a " hopeless case," but the teacher's
skill and kindness transformed that reckless lad into an aflfec-
tionate and diligent pupil, who in later years, when raised to
high eminence as a stateman,* still gratefully and repeatedly
acknowledged his indebtedness for success to the patience and
discrimiuation of General Salem Towne, his early teacher.

There is a " right side " to the roughest character. Let the
teacher find it, and adapt the requisite influences to his actual
wants, instead of abandoning the wayward, youth in despair.

The philosophy of motive is of great practical importance.
Here the teacher should not practice empirically. The train-
ing of the niind and heart involves too sacred interests to be
hazarded in trying a series of experiments. Such, however, is
the common process when the teacher enters upon his work
with no matured system of influences. He should have the
whole arsenal of motive at command. His success will depend
upon the number of these implements he can wield, upon his
judgment in their selection, and his skill in their use. He is
sure to excel as a disciplinarian who can felicitously adapt the
countless varieties of motive to all diversities of character. To
be able to do this most happily, the teacher must understand
the philosophy of the sensibilities. He must know what are
the emotions which he can awaken, and what are the natural
desires and affections which God has implanted as the impel*
ling forces in the human soul. I will not now discuss, or even
enumerate them. They are the springs of all action, and ia
them all motives must be addressed. The best clue to the
discernment of the ever-varying phases of human nature is a
practical knowledge of those causes which control and those
traits which constitute individual character.

* Hon. WiUlam L. Marcy.
S

118 MENTAL PHILOSOPHV.

While all admit the importance of a knowledge of human
nature, and are ever ready to say with Pope, that

" The proper study of mankind is man^ "

it is objected that the only true mode of studjring human nature
is not from books, but from the living subject in the daily inter-
course and transactions of life, and it is true that our first ideas
of mind and of those elemental principles of which all men
learji more or less, are thus acquired. Mental Philosophy, or
anything else, learned from books ahne, will be of very little
use. This knowledge becomes practical only when it is veri-
fied in our own consciousness, and tested by our observation
and experience. The close and constant observation of men,
the habit of analyzing character and watching the play of the
different faculties and the manifestation of individual traits of
mind and heart, tracing actions to their motives, giving always
the first and severest scrutiny to our own motives and mental
operations, aJe the most direct, safe and certain methods of study-
ing Mental Philosophy. The mere knowledge of philosophical
systems and nomenclature can give only the shell without the
substance. The man who studies mind from books alone will
know less of genuine human nature than the unlettered, but
eagle-eyed, observer of men and things. Text-books and sys-
tems serve a most important purpose, but can furnish no sub-
stitute for observation and reflection. The text-book is, how-
aver, as useful in Mental Philosophy as iti the Natural Scnences.
All men have the opportunity of studying nature. Minerals,
animals and plants are the most familiar objects which have
surrounded us from childhood. But his knowledge of Mineral-
ogy, Natural History, or Botany is most thorough and scientific
who diligently employs the best productions of others to aid
his own observation and reflection. Practical sagacity in the
conduct of affairs and the control of men can usually be traced
to the union of science and observation. The one unfolds great
universal principles and invests them with interest, dignity
and power ; the other confirms them by the rigid test of exper-
ience, and facilitates their application in personal influence'or
persuasion.

The importance of Mental Philosophy has not been generally
admitted by teachers* The brilliant discoveries in the Natural

THE PROFESSIONAL STUDY. 119

Sciences, and their manifold applications to practical purposes,
have elicited universal admiration. As Psychology does not
display immediate and palpable results to the casual observer,
it is often disparaged, and pronounced devoid of practical
utility. But its importance — ^like the foundations of an edifice
— is none tha less real because less observed. With earnest
and thoughful minds in every age of the world its imperial
sway has been freely acknowledged, and only less absolute has
been its authority when men have failed to recognize the
source of the principles which form popular sentiment and con-
trol public affairs. Each historic period reflects certain great,
philosophic ideas, which UQW color and characterize the picture
of the historian, simply because they once were the formative-
elements in the original. Hence^ History has been fitly styled
" Philosophy teaching by examples," and its highest use and
value may be found in the lessons of human nature which it.
furnishes. And when, instead of a dry record of events in
chronological order, it investigates the causes and consequences
of the successive changes and conditions of society, it becomes,
worthy of the name of the " Philosophy of History."

Mental Philosophy is only another name for a thorough and.
scientific knowledge of human nature. It deals with those first
principles which are the foundation of all knowledge and phi-
losophy, literature and theology. Infidelity itself is ever trace-
able to some false philosophy. " All Sciences," says Hume,,
" have a relation to human nature, and, however wide they may
seem to roam from it, they still return back by one passage or
another ; this is the center and capitol of the Sciences, whichs
being once master of, we may easily extend our conquests
everywhere." And says Sir William Hamilton, " There is no^
branch of Philosophy which does not suppose Psychology as^
its preliminary, which does not borrow from this as its light.
It supplies either the materials or the rules to aU the Sciences." .

So far as our teachers are induced to pursue this. subject, our
schools will be elevated. The study should indeed be mastered!
in the Normal School. But I commend the subject to those in.
actual service, whose ** school days" are ended, but who, if
worthy to teach, feel that their education is just begun.

STUDY AND HEALTR

Alarmists have written eloquently on "the Slaughter of the
Innocents" in school by over study, alleging that severe appli-
cation is impairing the health of multitudes, and that, the
study hours should be reduced to five, four, and, as some
strenuously contend, three hours a day. If " The Slaughter
of the Innocents" in school be not a "Yankee Notion," it
is at least one little known in Europe. The German boys
;and English girls study more hours than our youth, and yet
have better health. In Europe young and old are out more in
the open. air. The bloom and vigor of English women is due
largely to their freer and fuller exercise in the street, the park,
the forest and the field. The physical education of children is
everywhere encouraged if not enforced. Out-door recreation
is systematized. Besides the daily walks, fi*equent excursions *
into the country and appropriate plays are provided, for girls
.as well as boys. The American girl is not a match for her
Englishi cousins in these pedestrian excursions. We have yet
to learn that air and exercise are as essential to health as food
and sleep. The single habit of late hours harms our children
more than hard study. The example of Germany is well
worthy of imitation. Early hours are there the rule, early to
school (at seven in summer and eight in winter) and early to
bed. Even the opera, concert and theater begin at six or
seven o'clock and close at nine or ten.

It is a common but mistaken impression that study is unfav-
orable to health. That the laws of hygiene are sadly neglected
and that ignorance of physiology breeds serious mischief is no
doubt true. There are also exceptional oases of children who
are constitutionally too frail or nervous to bear the stimulus or
tasks of school. But wide observation confirms the conclu-
sion that, as a rule, our schools do not overtask the brain or
injure health. It is fashionable to charge to the school a long
list of ills which really belong to a diflferent "account"

STUDY AND HEALTH. 121

The proper training and exertion of the mind will not harm
the health. The body is the instrument through which the
mind works, and its power depends, in no small degree, on the
vigor of the physical system. Increased eflfort and energy of
mind must be balanced by proper activity of the body. The
mischievous error prevalent on this subject is a common excuse
for indolence and inefficiency. Study need not be injurious to
health. The mind itself was made to work. Its primal law
is growth by work. It can gain strength only by spending it
The intensest study invigorates the body as well as the mind,
strengthens both the nervous and muscular system, makes the
blood course in stronger health-giving currents through the
system, enlarges the brain, erects the form, softens the features,
brightens the eye, animates the countenance, dignifies the whole
person, and in every way conduces to health, provided only
that it is pursued in accordance with the laws of hygiene as to
diet, exercise, rest, sleep and ventilation.

Dr. Flint says, in the. American Practitioner: "Sanitarians
have of late had much to say respecting the evils of over-exer-
tion of the intellect But there is another aspect of the etiology
of morbid mental conditions concerning which much less has
been {^aid, namely, deficient exercise of the intellectual powers,
or insufficient activity of the mind as a source of morbific
agencies. The diseases of both body and mind originate quite
as often in a want of the proper action of the intellectual and
moral faculties as in theij over use or excitation. Occupations
which employ the intellect are likely to prevent inordinate
attention to the bodily functions, and herein their influence is
prophylactic. Abundant illustrations of thB evils of deficient
activity of the mind are to be found among those who, under
the delusive expectation of enjoying leisure and rest, have
relinquished pursuits which involved a habitual exercise of the
mental faculties."

• *

Henry Ward Beecher well says : " It is not work but worry
that kills men. Work is healthy. You can hardly put more
on a man than he can bear. Men literally worry themselves to
death. Worry is rust upon the blade. It is not the revolution
that destroys the machinery, but the friction. Fear secretes,
acid, but love and trust are sweet juices."

122 STUDY AND HEALTH.

Undoubtedly the minds of very little children are often stim-
ulated by parents and nurses to premature and therefore
injurious activity. I have no sympathy with any processes for
initiating babes in the knowledge of books. Such prodigies, how-
ever they may gratify the pride of parents, alwavs suggest pain-
ful apprehensions of future debility and premature decrepitude.
Precocity is unnatural and undesirable, because it is the symp-
tom, if not the cause, of disease. Early ripeness of mind, as of
fruit, is hastened by a secret enemy at the core, and however
attractive the exterior, it is found in reality lifeless and insipid.
It shows well for a time, like plants in a hot-house with large
tops and little roots. What is gained in time poorly compen-
sates for the loss of maturity and spirit Precocity stints the
growth of t)oth body and mind, if it does not become the tomb
of talents and health. Lucretia Maria Davidson wrote verses
at four years, and died before completing her seventeenth year,
leaving over two hundred separate pieces of poetic composition.
Her sister Margaret began to write poetry at six, at ten acted in
a passionate drama in New York City, and died at fourteen.

Where is to be found a man of strength who was a prodigy
in reading and reasoning at four years? Dr. Johnson used
dryly to ask, " what becomes of all the clever children." Many
children begin the study of books when they should be follow-
ing the strong native bent of childhood in observing objects.
The perceptive faculties should be first addressed. Teachers
too seldom inquire what is the order in which the juvenile
powers are to be developed, and hence lessons are often assigned
which task the reflective faculties chiefly, when, in the natural
order of growth, they should be comparatively latent Violence
is done to a child who, at this tender age, is harrassed with
problems of arithmetic or the intricacies of grammar. Observa-
tion precedes reflection. At the earliest school age, the memory
as well as the perceptive faculties may be pleasantly and safely
exercised with attractive lessons, or observations rather, on
form, color, size, weight, place, number, time, the obvious qual-
ities of common things, and the form or spelling of words, and
in reading. Let those exercises be very brief — relieved after
each lesson by gymnastics or marchings and music, and the
primary school becomes a sort of play or kindergarten, safe and
healthful for vigorous children of five years of age.

STUDY AND HEALTH. 123

But the objection under consideration relates chiefly to much
older children. In regard to them even the wise man is quoted
to confirm that view : " Much study is a weariness of the flesh."
Very true* So also the most invigorating and healthful kinds
of labor and exercise bring for the time weariness, till relieved
by repose. There are undoubtedly exceptional cases of older
children, whose nervous state, or otherwise abnormal condition,
requires the partial or entire suspension of study. But even in
these cases, the illness is commonly due to other causes than
excessive study. When the plainest laws of health are vio
lated, when, for example, children are crammed with mince-
pies, colored candies, or doughnuts, between meals and before
retiring, it is hardly fair that the inevitable result should be
charged to the overtasking of the teacher.

After the earnest studies of school, and in addition to all the
gymnastics there introduced, let children be encouraged to
walk and ride, work and play, run and romp ; let them row
boats, jump rope, trundle hoop, twang the bow, pitch quoits,
try for ten strikes, play at ball, base, cricket, or croquet, or
with shuttlecock and battledoor, and then we shall hear far less
of the evil of overtasking the brain. I have no fear of stimula-
ting healthy children, of suitable age, to excessive study during
school hours, provided they are relieved by proper intervals for
gymnastics and music.

The history of West Point well illustrates the healthfulness
of study, and recommends to all students the hygienic regula-
tions there found to be so successful. Though the standard of
admission is low, the demand for application is unusually exact-
ing, and the relative progress remarkable. No other institu-
tion has so uniformly and rigidly insisted on thoroughness of
study and instruction. The example of such exact methods,
both of learning and teaching, is fitted to exert a happy influ-
ence upon the cause of education throughout the land. Says a
competent observer and a graduate : " The course of the Mili-
tary Academy is probably the most severe of any similar one
in the world." The cadets are instructed, not in classes, but in
small sections of from ten to twelve each, and in these small
sections not less than one hour and a half is devoted to each
recitation in mathematics, science, natural philosophy or eu-

124 STUDY AND HEALTH.

gineering, and the shortest recitations occupy at least one hour.
The great characteristic excellence of the system here adopted
is the amount of personal instruction given to individuals, and
in adaptation to the perceived deficiences, or excellences, of
each cadet This plan soon tests and discovers the capacity of
individuals. It necessitates the mastery of every lesson. It
leaves no way to shirk knotty points, to dodge hard problems
or calculate "the chance of not being called up to-day," as
is so often done in other institutions. The cadet never has
occasion to say that he has mastered the lesson, for nothing is
taken for granted, and nothing is done by proxy. He must
always give the proof by himself solving every problem or de-
monstrating every theorem, or stating and defending every prin-
ciple or fact in clear and exact terms. In geometry, for exam-
ple, in addition to the demonstrations, he must be ready, at
every recitation, to draw from memory all the diagram*
embraced, both in the advance and review lesson, and enunciate
accurately all the propositions and principles involved. He
must be prepared in this way to state and demonstrate any
proposition over which he has passed in any part of his
course. All the diagrams of both the advance and review
lesson . must be daily drawn by every cadet in each section.
The same method is substantially adopted in the various
branches of mathematics, until, by frequent reiteration, the
most profound principles and difficult processes become familiar
as the daily drills have rendered the manual of arms.

Notwithstanding the severity of the studies and exacting
rigor of the recitations, and the rivalry of the students, the
health of the cadets is uncommonly good. It is a rare thing
for a cadet to break down from over-study. This is due, not
primarily to the fact that all candidates admitted must possess
a sound constitution, but more to the excellent hygienic rules
of the academy.

In no other literary institution within niy knowledge are
the laws of health so rigidly observed ; in no other are the
requirements for study so severe and unrelenting, especially in
the higher mathematics. One of the cadets, among the best
scholars of his class, said to me, "Before I came under this
rigid regime, I could scarcely bear a tithe of the application I

STUDY AND HEALTH. 125

have here safely practiced." There are regular hours for study,
recreation, exercise, sleep and meals. The food is ample but
the diet plain. No restaurant is tolerated on the premises, to
suggest or facilitate the noxious practice of eating between
meals, or at late hours in the evening. No tempting " saloon"
disturbs the stomach with pastry, cakes, or confectionery. The
regular and frequent military drills, the gymnasium, and the
equitation-hall, invite or exact abmndant and most invigorating
exercise.

Our colleges have recently provided new fecilities and encour-
agements for gymnastic training. The results are everywhere
happy, and happiest where, as at Amherst College, it has been
made a department of positive duty, under the ' direction of a
college instructor. But no college within my knowledge com-
pares favorably with the United States Military Academy in
regard to the prominence uniformly, and hy reguhiion, given to
physical education. Besides the wide range of gymnastic
exercises, infantry tactics, sabre practice and fencing, the cadets
are trained in niortar practice, use of howitzers, coast and siege
batteries, .target tiring with light and heavy ordnance, but es-
pecially the Parrott gun, and in the still more exciting and ex-
hilarating drills of flying artillery, cavalry and trooper. The
trooper's drill requires the most perfect horsemanship and quick-
ness of eye and hand. To vault into the saddle and sit erect
and easy, and carry in proper position the toe, heel, knee, bridle-
arm and fingers, is but the first step in the trooper's training.
The hurdle race next tests his nerve, and tells the horse the
spirit of his rider as quickly as the drill-master. I never saw
elsewhere so striking an illustration of the unity of the horse
and his rider. On one occasion I was visiting West Point when
a new class were taking their first lessons in the hurdle race.
The horsemanship of each rider seemed to be as apparent to
the horse as to the observer. The bold and upright attitude of
one showed him to be at home in the saddle, and his horse
leaped the hurdle like a deer; the hugging legs, and timid,
crouching position of another, so dispirited the horse that noth-
ing but the lash of the drill-master would carry him over.

Another drill demands both coolness and agility. Dumb-
heads are placed on movable posts, standing about ten yards

126 STUDY AND HEALTH.

apart, two on each side of the equitation-hall. The trooper,
with his revolver, fires at these heads while riding at full speed.
If the first head is hit, to cock, aim and fire while going rap-
idly ten yards, is a discipline of skill and dexterity. Again, for
6abre practice, ten yards beyond the second dumb head, on
each side of the hall, is placed a pendent ring about three
inches in diameter. In this drill, spurring his horse to the gal-
lop, he pierces the first head with the point of his sabre in a
forward thrust, and cuts off the second with a back stroke, and
picks on the point of his sabre the pendent ring. A majority
of the first class would hit every head and carry ofl^ both rings.

Besides these various forms of physical training, the bath-
rooms, hospital accommodations, and other arrangements for
health are truly admirable. The bath-rooms are so neatly kept
sCnd furnished as to invite a ready obedience to the rule that
every cadet must bathe at least twice a week, at certain pre-
scribed hours. The hospital accommodations are ample, and
usually empty, and, fortunately, the ofRce of the excellent post-
surgeon seems to be nearly a sinecure. Long may he keep
it so.

The reveille early summons all to duty, and the close
alternation of study, recitation, drill, or gymnastics so fully
uses. up both time and strength, that the cadets are quite
ready for tattoo at 10 o'clock at night, when all lights must
be extinguished. There is, therefore, nearly the same uni-
formity in the hour of retiring as of rising. Well would it be
if a tattoo, or regard to the laws of health, no less impera-
tive, closed all lights and eyes as seasonably in our schools and
colleges. How many students graduate from other institutions,
with mental energy braced by no physical vigor, attended by a
positive aversion to active exercise, if not enfeebled by bodily
languor, impaired health or a broken constitution. How sad
a contrast to the exuberant health, the joyous glow of bodily
energy, the strength of constitution, the power of endurance,
the scorn of ease, the love of toil and adventure, and the eager-
ness for exploits, which mark the cadets as they come forth like
racers panting for the course.

I have already referred to Amherst College as the only one
of our larger Institutions, except the United States Military and

STUDY AND HEALTH. 127

Naval Academies, which officially requires the systematic train-
ing of the body. Physical culture is there made a regular de-
partment as much as Chemistry or the Classics, with a professor,
who is a thoroughly educated physician and guardian of the
health of the institution. In illustration of the plan and its
happy Results, I quote the following statements from Dr. Nathan
Allen, calling attention to the feet that the standard of both
^c^oforsAtjp and AeaZ^A has been thus raised. It is the duty of
the head of this department " to see that the laws of Hygiene
are observed, to watch over the physical welfare of everj^ stu-
dent, striving to correct as far as possible all physical weaknesses,
defects, and habits injurious to health, and in case of sick-
ness advising and directing the best treatment It is also made
his duty to give lectures upon Hygienic Physiology, and the
great laws of life and health : and in order to preserve a sound
constitution and thereby prevent disease, a series of gymnastic
exercises has been introduced as a part of the regular college
duties, and every student, (except for physical imperfection,) is
required to take part in them, under the inspection of his in-
structor. These exercises are so designed and varied as to
exercise every part of the body in the most natural and bene-
ficial manner. It is no part of the plan to develop particular
muscles for great feats of agility and strength, but to train the
whole body for its highest and most efficient action. It is in-
tended that. every muscle and tissue of the system shall be
developed in harmony with every portion of the brain and
faculty of the mind. By this systematic training, it is found
that the students accomplish far more in their studies, thus
elevating the standard of scholarship in this institution, while
their constitutions in the meantime are not broken down or im-
paired, — so that physically as well as mentally they are better
prepared for the more public and responsible duties of after
years. It is also a well known fact that since the introduction
of these exercises Ihere has been a decided improvement in the
health of students generally, and less sickness as well as mortality.
These exercises are not only compulsory, but faithful atten-
dance upon them, as well as careful observance of the laws of
Hygiene generally, are taken into account in making up the
rank and scholarship of each stiident Every year's experience

128 STUDY AND HEALTH.

has satisfied the ojfieers of the College more and more of the
great advantages derived from this department. And so- hearty
in the appreciation of these advantanges are the students, that
they would dispense with any other department in college
sooner than that of Physical Culture. The true secret of its
success is found in the fact, that the Trustees and Faculty, from
its commencement, have attached great importance to it, and
given it character by making it one of the departments of the
College. The students also deserve much credit for their zeal-
ous and practical endorsement of these pleasures. If such
is the connection of the mind with the body as to render all
mental development and acquisition greatly dependent upon
the strength and condition of the physical system^ is it not the
part of wisdom and duty to see, that in the training of youth,
in the educational process, the laws of the mind and body
should be taken into account ? Can any good reasou be given
why the laws of the one should be ignored or violated, when
experience shows that such a course so often results in failure ?
Are not the laws of the body a part of the government of God,
to \yhich we owe allegiance as much as those of the mind or
soul ? Modern science, in connection with the most advanced
views of education, is teaching us more and more, every year,
the importance of good health — of a sound constitution, in order
to secure the highest success in life ; and this depends very
much upon. the proper care and training of the body in youth.
It is becoming evident that physical culture is yet to occupy a
far more prominent position in all our systems of education
than heretofore, and mast ere long be introduced in some form
into the regular exercises of all our schools, semina^es, and
higher institutions of learning. We venture this prediction,
that in no department of education will there be greater im-
provement for the next fifty years, than in a more perfect
development of the human system and harmony of function,
between the laws that govern both the mind and the body."

To be healthful and inspiring, study must be pursued not
as a task — hated and coerced, but under the impulse of such
incentives as make it a noble, worthy, cheerful, joyous work.
When interest is awakened, ambition kindled, and progress
made, the consciousness of improvement becomes a reward of

STUDY AND HEALTH. 129

past eflfort, and a healthful motive to new exertions. The
exhilaration of success is a standard hygiene for the body, and
cures many maladies which no therapeutic agents can reach.
In the school, as in the world, far more rust out than wear out
Study is most tedious and wearisome to those who study least.
Drones always have the toughest time. Grumblers make poor
scholars, and their lessons are uniformly "hard" and *Hoo
long." The time and thought expended in shirking would be
ample to master their tasks. Sloth, gormandizing and worry
kill their thousands where over-study harms one. The curse
of Heaven rests on laziness and gluttony. By the very consti-
tution of our being they are fitted to beget that torpor and
despondency which chill the blood, deaden the nerves, enfeeble
the muscles, and derange the whole vital machinery. Fretting,
fidgeting, ennui and anxiety are among the most common
causes of disease. While now, as of old, " a merry heart doeth
good like medicine," a weak will easily succumbs to the ills of
life. The alarm occasioned by the approach of a contagious
disease often weakens the power of resistance, and directly
invites the very disease so much dreaded. Bad news cloys the
appetite and clogs digestion; fear relaxes the muscles and
checks both the breathing and circulation ; and fright makes
the extremities cold, the face flushed and the temples throb.
On. the other hand, high aspiration and enthusiasm help diges-
tion and respiration, and send an increased supply of vital
energy to all parts of the body. Courage and work invigorate
the whole system, and lift one into a purer atmosphere, above
the reach of contagion.

The lazy groan most over their "arduous duties;" while
earnest workers taJk little about the exhausting labors of their
profession. Of all creatures, the sloth would seem to be most
wearied and worn. " He that is slothful in his work is brother
to him that is a great waster" — first of a;ll of health. Said Dr.
Humphrey, for twenty two years the President of Amherst
College, and who reached the age of eighty -two: "I have yet
to see the man who died from the eflfects of study." Kant, an
indefetigable student in the most profound themes pf meta-
physics, and leader of a new school in philosophy, lived beyond
the limits of three-score and ten. As the result of his long

130 STUDY AND HEALTH.

experience and wide observation, he was wont to say : •* Intel-
lectual pursuits tend to prolong life/* He placed great re-
liance on the power of cheerfulness and will in resisting disease.
"Be of good cheer" is as wise a prescription for the health of
the body as of the souL

Barbaric races are comparatively puny and short-lived. The
increase of knowledge and the advance of civilization have
greatly lengthened human life. This fact is abundantly estab-
lished by statistics in all of the most educated countries of the
world, and the careful investigations of life insurance com-
panies. Old men are seldom found among savages, and the
rate of mortality is proportioned in some measure to the degree
of barbarism ; while early deaths everywhere diminish as
science and general culture advanca It is said that the statis-
tics of Geneva show that from 1600 to 1700, the average length
of life in that city was 13 years and 3 months. From 1700 to
1760, it was 27 years and- 9 months. From 1750 to 1800, it
was 36 and 3 months. From 1800 to 1833, it was 43 years and
6 months.

The great scholars, philosophers, poets, statesmen, orators,
discoverers and savants, have been, as a general fact, men of
abounding health and long-lived. The Necrology of ministers,
as shown in the annual reports of diflferent denominations, is
striking in this particular, especially in view of the well-known
fact that physical infirmity sometimes determines the choice of
a professional life. In some families, the son who is too frail
to work goes to college. Many years ago, one of five sons of
a New Hampshire farmer was sent to college, because his feeble
constitution could not endure the labors of the farm, which his
rugged brothers pursued for life. He was long a scholarly and
successful pastor, and recently died at eighty -five, surviving all
his brothers. Study evidently prolonged his life.

To give a few out of a multitude of illustrations. Lord Bacon,
Milton, Mcintosh, Burke, Berkely, Sir William Hamilton,
President Stiles, President Dwight, Washington, Benjamin
Eush and Audubon, reached nearly three-score and ten years.
Dry den, Adam Clark, Leibnitz, Linnaeus, Lock, Crabb, Dugal
Stewart, Swift, Eoger Bacon, Haydn, Handel, Webster and
Wilberforce, ranged fi-om seventy to eighty.

STUDY AirD HEALTH. 181

The advanced age of the great British statesmen, among the
most intense thinkers of the world, strikingly illustrates the
healthfulness of intellectual pursuits. Lord John Eussell is
now eighty -one. Lord Palmerston was Premier at eighty and
died at eighty-ona Lord Brougham made able speeches in
Parliament after he was eighty-seven and died at ninety. Lord
Lyndhurst electrified the House of Lords by a brilliant speech
when he was ninety and died at ninety -one.

The average of the deceased Presidents of Yale College was
sixty-nine years, and of all the deceased Presidents and Profes-
sbrs, over sixty-five years.

The average age of all the deceased Presidents of the United
States^ now fifteen in number, was seventy-four and one-half
years. Mr. Lincoln, felling by the hand .of an assassin while
in health and with one exception the youngest of all the Presi-
dents at his premature death, of course unduly reduces this
average. One — Millard Fillmore — is still living at the age of
seventy -three.

Wordsworth, Eollin, Eoscoe, Dr. Harvey and Chief Justice
Marshall died at eighty. The three Adamses— Governor Sam-
uel, John and John Quincy — and Noah Webster, averaged
eighty-five. John Wesley, leading a life of intense activity,
continued to work without faltering till one week before his
death, at the age of eighty-eight.

Carl Bitter, Franklin, Pestalozzi, Herschel, Newton, Sweden -
borg, Mirabeau, Eowland Hill, Washington Irving, the astron-
omer Halley, the mathematician Hutton, the theologians
Beecher, Emmons and Dana, averaged eighty-five years.
Hobbs, Humboldt, ^Ferguson, Sir Christopher Wren, Bishop
Wilson, Fontenelle, William Ellery, Presidents Johnson, of
Columbia College, Day, of Yale, and Nott, of Union, averaged
ninety-two.

These individual cases illustrate rather than prove my posi-
tion. Many similar facts might be given to confirm this theory.
But the statistics and table given below amount to a demon-
stration of the healthfulness of intellectual pursuits — clearly
proving that longevity of scholars is greater than that of any-
other class of men. This evidence is the more satisfactory
because it embraces large numbers and a long period of time.

132

STUDY AND HEALTH.

During the eigbteentb ceatury the average age of tbe de-
ceased graduates waa over 62 years. The average of deceased
graduates reported from 1S41 to 1873 waa 66$.

A TABLE,
SJwaiug ttuageof ieeeated graduatta of Tah College, lehoK
from Avgvit, 1841, ta June, 1813.

daOht tntre reported

BepDHof

SS:£l

^«

»

w

^w

40

70

»

0»er

5!

repprfU

^

t»M

toeo

WW

H

■*^Sf

a

1842

36

5

B

5

B

S

57i*

1

28

I

4

2

3

8

s

66i

1844

BE

S

6

6

8

10

66-,V

i

1846

66

S

12

IS

5

1

62i

1846

41

8

S

2

3

1

63

1

1841

40

2

T

8

7

6

64}

65

^

11

U

12

7

c

6i

f

1849

50

l«

3

6

5

1

661

18B0

60

9

1

4

7

S

1

64}

5

1861

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1862

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3

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■ 1854

42

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.1856

58

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1866

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63^

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1857

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1868

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43

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67

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59

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9

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1863

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8

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27

1864

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18

1865

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18

18GG

65

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1861

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1869

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1870

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255

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293

366

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The thorough iuvestigatioDS of Life Insurance Companies
establish the same conclusion, so that it is strenuously urged
that tbe livea of youth connected with the learned professions,
and especially clergymen, may safely be insured at mach
below the average rates.

• Three lost at iea, whose Bverage age wbb 23 yean.

! Supplementary to the eleven previoui Beporta.
AvBrage age of these 88, 31 years.

/

STUDY AND HEALTH. 133

Dr. Palmer's statistics of Harvard College from the ye^ 1851
to 1863 show the average age of Harvard graduates deceased
during that period to be 58, while throughout the State of
Massachusetts, the average of all who die after they reach 20 is
only 50. Here adults only enter into the comparison in either
case.

The period selected by Dr. Palmer embraces few war casual-
ties, while the above table includes not only the 74 who died
in the service, but also the 14 whose death since the war was
caused or hastened by exposures in the army. The average
age of these 88 whose deaths resulted from the war was only
31. Considering also the three lost at sea at the average of
twenty-three, we may safely put the real average at Yale for the
entire period of thirty-two years as at least fifty-eight, instead
of fifty-six and five-ninths.

In an article on the Vital Statistics of College Graduates,
Gen. John Eaton, United States Commissioner of Education,
says : " Vital statistics show an incre'ase in the average dura-
tion of life, due in great part to the multiplication of comforts,
the better protection from the elements, the improvement in the
quantity and quality of food, and the great saving of physical
eflfort and exposure caused by the invention and wide-spread
introduction of labor-saving machinery, the improvement of
morals, or, in one phrase, the progress of civilization. These
results may be largely credited to the increasing general intel-
ligence of the people, the direct result of that common-school
system which seeks to educate every child in the community."

These investigations establish another striking and important
fact As a general rule in the most advanced years of literary
men, when the bodily sight has failed in part or entirely, the
mental eye has remained undimmed. This remarkable contin-
uance of reason and intellectual vigor to extreme age is itself a
proof of the healthfulness of study. The following testimony
secured by Gen. Eaton, confirms the preceding statements.
President Porter, of Yale College, says : " So far as my knowl-
edge at present extends, not more than eight of the academical
graduates of this college, between 1836 and 1860, have become
insane, while none are known to have been convicted of crime,
or to have become paupers, or dependent on the public for sup-

9

134 STUDY AND HEALTH.

port." President Cummings, of the Wesleyan University,
writes : " I know of no one of the alimini of Wesleyan Uni-
versity who has become insane ; none who are known to have
been convicted of crime; none who have become paupers;
none who have become or are dependent on the public for sup-
port"

It is not study itself, then, that injures health, but habits and
conditions that have no necessary connection with study.
Aside from feicts, it seems improbable that the culture and exer-
cise of the noblest part of our nature should prove a drain
upon the vital functions of the body. Let study be pursued in
our schools in accordance with the laws of hygiene ; let singing
and gymnastics alternate with lessons and recitations ; let the
posture of pupils be erect, their breathing deep and the rooms
ventilated, and all proper rules of health be heeded, and little
will be said of "the slaughter of the innocents in school."
Indiscretions at home do a thousand fold more harm than over-
study at school. Concerts, parties, balls, late hours generally,
neglect of exercise in the open air, three or four hours' daily
confinement at the piano, excessive or indigestible food and
unventilated sleeping rooms, suggest the secret of many pale
faces and frail forms.

LABOR AS AN EDUCATOR

Every child should learn to work. A practical knowledge
of some industrial pursuit is an important element in intel-
lectual culture. The son of affluence who is conscious that he
could maintain himself by honest labor, can the better use his
wealth, as well as appreciate the condition and needs of the
poor. Froude, the historian, well says : " The ten command-
ments and a handicraft make a good and. wholesome equipment
to commence life with. A man must learn to stand upright
upon his own feet, to respect himself, to be independent of
charity or accident It is on this basis only that any super-
structure of intellectual cultivation worth having can possibly
be built. It hurts no intellect to be able to make a boat, or a
house, or a pair of shoes, or a suit of clothes, or hammer a
horse-shoe, and if one can do either of these, he has nothing to
fear from fortune. Spinoza, the most powerful intellectual
worker that Europe had produced for the last two centuries,
waving aside the pensions and legacies that were thrust upon
him, chose to maintain himself by grinding object-glasses for
microscopes and telescopes."

It is a partial view of education which assumes that books
and schools, indispensable as they are, do the whole work.
Every thing which the child sees and hears, and still more,
what he does, educates. This practical training begins in the
cradle, and runs on through life. The educating value of labor
has not been duly appreciated. Whatever compels one to think
and decide on practical business questions, awakening conscious
responsibility and self-reliance, develops mental power. Busi-
ness pursuits frequently discover and draw out great talents.
A degree of foresight, sagacity, practical wisdom and executive
ability are often displayed in the management of commercial,
manufacturing or agricultural interests, which would win the
highest eminence if devoted to either of the professions.

136 LABOR AS AK EDUCATOR.

Every child's education is deficient who has not learned to
work in some useful form of industry. Labor aids in disciplin-
ing the intellect and energizing the character. Especially does
farm work task and test the mind, by leading a boy to plan and
contrive, to adapt means to ends, in a great variety of ways,
and under constantly varying circumstances. The necessities
and struggles of the farm demand patience and perseverance,
develop force of character and energy of will, and teach the
needful lesson, " Where there is a will, there is a way." How
many of the leading men of our country, like Washington,
Webster, Clay and Lincoln, grew up on the farm and gained
there an invaluable discipline for the conflicts and achievements
of life.

Labor develops inventive talent. The exigencies of the far-
mer, remote from villages and shops, compel him to be some-
thing of the carpenter, joiner, blacksmith and harness-maker-
a man of all work — " handy at anything." His business varies
with the seasons, and sometimes changes every day. A former's
boy myself, early trained in practical industry and familiar
with all forms of farm work, I have ever valued highly these
practical lessons learned among the rough hills of grand old
Litchfield County.

I counsel even the sons of affluence to spend at least one sea-
son at hard work on the farm or in the shop. The practical
business drill there gained, the knowledge of nature and do-
mestic animals, will amply compensate for the consequent loss
in book learning, to say nothing of the health and physical
training thus secured. With all our improved gymnastics,
none is better than manual labor, when it is cheerfully and
intelligently performed, and especially ferm work. The habits
of industry, once formed on the farm or in the shop, may shape
all the future, 'teaching one to value time, to husband " the odd
moments," to scorn sloth and love labor, or at least to practice
"diligence in business."

The pupils who luxuriate in the wealthiest homes of the city

would profit by one year in the country, with its peculiar work

and play, its freer sports and wider range of rambles by the

.springs and brooks, the rivers and water- falls, the ponds and

llakes, over the hills and plains, through the groves and forests ;

LABOR AS AN EDUCATOR. 137

in observing nature, searching for wild flowers and curious
stones, learning to recognize the different trees by any one of
their distinctive marks, viz., the lea^ flower, fruit, form, bark
and grain, watching the ant-hills, collecting butterflies and vari-
ous insects, noticing the birds so as to distinguish them by their
beaks or claws, their size, form, plumage, flight or song. Study-
ing nature in any one or more of these varied forms, each so
fitted to charm children, would refresh their minds as well as
recreate their bodies, and stimulate that curiosity which is the
parent of attention and of memory. Nature is the great teacher
of childhood, and with her the juvenile mind needs closer con-
tact Facts and objects are the leading instruments of its early
development We do violence to the child's instinctive cravings
for natural objects if we give it books alone, and confine it iex-
clusively to the city. When I once found over three hundred
children in a city Grammar School, who had never visited the
country, I did not hesitate to say that, shut out from nature,
and shut in by brick walls, with all their ample apparatus
and able teachers, and superior school-house, these children
cannot possibly gain here a full and symmetrical development
of their various faculties. More needs to be done to combine
the advantages of country and city life. With poorer schools
and shorter terms, and with far less apparatus, but under the
kindly and invigorating influence of rural scenes and employ-
ments, the country sends forth its full share to the profes-
sions, and into posts of most commanding influence in the
Commonwealth and nation. Some of the retired rural districts
and small hill towns have been exceedingly fertile in the rich-
est treasures of intellect "Little Lebanon," for example, has.
raised up five governors of Connecticut The Litchfield County
Jubilee showed a proud array of her sons among the most emi-
nent men in our country.

Idleness and vice are twins, and while idleness is always a,
curse, work may be a blessing. Certainly, industry is essential
to thrift and virtue, to the culture of the mental as well as moral
nature. The Devil tempts everybody, but the idler tempts the
Devil, who gives plenty of work to all whom he finds with
nothing to do. " There are but three ways of living ; by work-
ing, by begging, or by stealing. Those who do not work, dis-

138 LABOR AS AN EDUCATOR.

guise it in whatever pretty language we please, are doing one of
the other two ! Every man should have one vocation, and as
many avocations as possible."* Men of mark are men of work.
The most industrious individuals and races are the most intelli-
gent and powerful ; the most elevated morally as well as men-
tally. In whatever land man can subsist in indolence, he
droops in intellect, and there is the greatest demoralization in
those tropical climates where leisure rather than labor is the
rule of life. Man rises in the scale where his necessities compel
constant industry, as he sinks where his wants exact no labor.
Where industry becomes habitual and skillful, it not only sup-
plies mere necessities, but stimulates demands above absolute
wants. Every pure enjoyment gained by labor prompts the
desire for other and higher gratifications. Theodore Parker well
said : " The fine arts do not interest me so much as the coarse
arts, which feed, clothe, house and comfort, people. I should
rather be a great man as Franklin than a Michael Angelo ; nay,
if I had a son, I should rather see him a mechanic who organ-
nized use, like the late George Stephenson, in England, than a
great painter like Rubens, who only copied beauty."

The waning of the old system of apprenticeships is a serious
•evil. The limitation fixed by the "Trades Unions" on the
number of apprentices allowed to each shop or master mechanic
is working mischief. It is a gross infringement of the rights
and privileges of thousands of minors. It deprives them of
that thorough training in the several trades which is essential
to the attainment of the highest skill and success. Multitudes
of boys anxious to learn trades and to become skillful mechan-
ics, are thus unjustly oppressed and prevented from becoming
trained artisans and valuable members of society. They are
defrauded of the true means of personal improvement and per-
manent prosperity. The system of apprenticeship lies at the
foundation of skilled industry, and should be encouraged to
the utmost as an indispensable part of the practical educa-
tion of our future artisans. Otherwise, our youth must be
forever debarred from the most lucrative positions, or sur-
render them to skilled mechanics imported from abroad. This
plan is short-sighted and suicidal. It cripples our future

* Froude.

LABOR AS AK EDUCATOR. 139

mechanics. It seeks a temporary gain at the sacrifice of their
permanent prosperity. This plan of temporary protection to
themselves at the expense of the rising generation, and, as often
happens, of their own children, is a delusion. The plan is arbi-
trary and inconsistent with the first principles of a Republican
Government I have known many a father trying in vain to
put his boy to a trade where his services were desired, and the
employer was reluctantly compelled to refuse the. applicant,
because "the Union permits only one apprentice to five or
seven journeymen." This rule is unreasonable and ought to be
illegal. Last October the Pennsylvania Council of the Order
of United American Mechanics wisely resolved " to take active
measures for the restoration of the good old system of appren-
ticeship, in order that the children of the members of this order
may be enabled to learn trades thoroughly, so as to compete with
foreign mechanics,^^ and also petitioned the Pennsylvania Legis-
lature to pass a State law " to prohibit any art or trade associa-
tion or combination of mechanics, or others, fi:om making lim-
itations upon the number of apprentices that may be employed
by any master or association, for the purpose of carrying on
any art, trade or manufactory."

The ambition for easier lives and more genteel employments,
and the silly but common notion that labor is menial, that the
tools of the trades or of the farm are badges of servility, have
greatly lessened apprenticeships. These pernicious notions
ought to be refuted in our schools, and our youth should there
be taught the necessity and dignity of labor, and its vital
relations to all human excellence and progress, the evils of
indolence, the absurdity of the prevalent passion for city life
and wide-spread aversion to manual labor. The popular dis-
taste for mechanical pursuits should be early counteracted, and
more should be done in our schools to dignify labor, and ren-
der mechanical pursuits attractive and reputabla The Indus-
trial Schools for girls as well as boys, so numerous and useful
in Germany, Switzerland and other portions of Europe, will be
described in full in a volume on *' The Schools of Europe,"
soon to appear. The influence of these Industrial Schools is
as important in dignifying labor, as in increasing its efficiency
and productive valua Boys and girls are early taught in the

140 LABOR AS AN EDUCATOR.

family as well as the school, that to learn to be useful is alike
their duty, privilege and interest But the theory that labor
is a degrading drudgery will consciously demean any artisan
and bar improvement in his art On the other hand, pride and
pleasure in his work lead to higher excellence both in his craft
and character. He who always does his best to-day can do
better still to-morrow. It was a wise provision of the Hebrews
that all parents should teach their children some handicraft.
This was with them, as it should be with us, an essential part
of the education of every child. Among the Hebrews labor was
alwavs honorable. No man was ashamed of his trade. A man
was not considered entitled to live unless he could support him-
self. No matter what his rank, he must be trained to work.
While proclaiming the new gospel for all the world, Paul by
the aid of his handicraft could assert his independence and be
burdensome to no one. By his own " ensample," he enforced
his precept, "If any would not work, neither should he eat,"
and his censure of " the disorderly busy-bodies working not at
all." "The chief of the apostles" did not degrade his high
office when he resumed his early trade of tent-maker. His asso-
ciates seemed never to suspect that their old business of fish-
ermen was disreputabla The Great Teacher honored manual
labor, and therefore as a carpenter's son worked patiently at
his father's trade.

Many of our youth are afflicted with the infatuation that city
clerkships are the most eligible positions, while the trades are
not " respectable." Let them learn that inielligeni mechanics
have a better chance of securing wealth, eminence and influence
than the over-crowded clerkships can afford The most exten-
sive manufecturer of silver in the world, John Gorham of Provi-
dence, declined the position of clerk in the counting-room, that
he might master the trade in his' father's shop as a regular
apprentice, where he learned thoroughly how to do with his
own hands all that he has since had to direct others in doing.
A multitude of similar facts might be cited to show that the
mastery of a trade is one of the best preparations for practical
life and prosperity in business. Clerks are often paid less than
skillful mechanics, and are less independent In their precari-
ous positions they are liable to disappointments and humilia-

LABOR AS AN EDUCATOR. 141

ting struggles with the thousands of others "looking for a
place." Every advertisement for a clerk brings a swarm
of applicants. How pitiable the condition of this super-abun-
dance of book-keepers and exchangers wasting their lives in
" waiting for a place," while our factories, railroads and trades
are clamoring for educated superintendents, foremen, engineers,
skillful managers and "cunning workmen." The position of
the educated and well trained mechanic is far preferable to that
of average city clerks. The latter may dress better, talk more
glibly, bow more gracefully, not to say obsequiously, but they
compare unfavorably with our best mechanics in manly inde-
pendence, vigor of thought and strength of character.

Too many of our young men leave the homestead on adven-
tures less safe and reliable than the arts of industry. A good
trade is more honorable and remunerative than peddling maps,
books, pictures, patent-rights and clothes wringers, or in a city
store to be cash or errand boy, store-sweeper, fire-kindler and
counter jumper generally. Without disparaging the useful and
honorable position of the clerk, our young men may properly
be cautioned against further crowding this already " plethoric
profession." To the boys in the country I say, instead of
aspiring to an uncertain and precarious clerkship, stick to the
farm or learn a trade, and you will lay the broadest foundation
for prosperity. Those who have well improved the opportuni-
ties now offered in our Free Schools, can afford to apprentice
themselves at sixteen years of age, supplementing their educa-
tion by evening schools, or by seK training in their evenings
and leisure hours. In the coming struggles for material pros-
perity, he will win who can best wield physical forces. Bacon
well says, " The empire of man over material things has for its
only foundation the sciences and the arts, for we triumph over
nature only as we learn to obey her laws." Promotion and
success are open to all in proportion as they master this lesson.

The superintendents at first selected for the large manufac-
turing corporations in this country, as at Lowell, were frequently
professional men, often practicing lawyers. But experience
long since led to a regular system of promotion. " Encourage
merit," " promote from the ranks," are now the mottoes. The
best superintendents of these large concerns are now those who

142 LABOR AS AN EDUCATOR.

have worked themselves up from the humblest positions, who
are thoroughly and practically familiar with all the processes
and details. In our factories every room has its foreman and
assistant foreman. These overseers are now selected from the
workmen by reason of superior education, aptitude and industry.
Many conductors and some superintendents of our railroads
began as brakemen. A prominent member of Congress passed
from farmer's boy to stage driver, brakeman, conductor, super-
intendent, and finally to the position of president of a large
railroad in New England.

The following facts in regard to the early history of some of
our great statesmen are furnished to me by one of oui* most
honored civilians, whose life happily illustrates the same princi-
ple. Multitudes have gained a similar promotion from the
humblest to the highest positions.

" Very few of the fathers of our republic were the inheritors
of distinction. Washington was almost the only gentleman by
right of birth in all that astonishing company of thinkers and
actors. Two or three Virginians, John Jay, of New York, and
half-a-dozen inferior men from other provinces, were exceptions.
But Franklin was a printer's boy ; Sherman a shoemaker ;
Knox a book-binder ; Green a blacksmith ; John Adams and
Marshall the sons of poor farmers; and Hamilton, the most
subtle, fiery and electrical, but at the same time the most
orderly genius of all, excepting the unapproachable chief, was
of as humble parentage as the rest, and himself, at the
beginning, a shopkeeper. And if we come down to a later
period, Daniel Webster was the son of a country farmer, and
was rescued from the occupation of a drover only by the shrewd
observation of Christopher Gore, whom he called upon for ad-
vice in respect to a difficulty arising from the sale of a pair of
steers ; John C. Calhoun was the son of a tanner and currier ;
the father of Henry Clay belonged to the poorer class of Baptist
ministers ; Martin Van Buren, during the fitful leisure of the
day, gathered pine knots to light his evening studies ; Thomas
Corwin was a wagoner ; Silas Wright, by heritage, a machinist;
Lincoln, Douglass and Stevens were farmer's boys ; and many
others among our statesmen, who receive the applause and rever-

LABOR AS AN EDUCATOR. 143

ence of mankind, passed their earlier years in the practical
school of labor."

I began to enumerate the inventors, manufacturers and busi-
ness men of Connecticut — ^now our men of wealth — who were
trained on the farm or in the shops, but found the list too large
for publication. It would comprise most of the successful busi-
ness men of the Stata Those who despised labor and aspired to
" genteel occupations" in their youth, have not been the bene-
factors of the community, nor of themselves.

The great inventors were not dandled in the lap of affluence,
nor were they contemners of the trades, ambitious of *' elegant"
employments. They were "clad not in silks but fustian, and
grimed with soot and oiL" In the language of Professor Lyman,
" The artificers and inventors of the world, the men who revo-
lutionize human industry and manifold the wealth and power
of nations by new machines and new processes of art — the
Watts, the Arkwrights, the Bramahs, the Clements, the Nas-
myths, the Stephensons, the Fairbaims, the Fultons, the Erics-
sons, the Goodyears, the Howes, the McCormicks, have usually
had their training in the shops."

EDUCATION AND INDUSTEIAL ARTS.

The industrial interests of our country are vital to its pros-
perity. We are a working people, and the cause of the work-
man is the cause of alL The problem of our day is to elevate
work by elevating the workman. The masses are learning that
mere muscle is weak, that brains help the hands in" all work,
that knowledge multiplies the value and productive power of
muscular efforts. If knowledge is power, ignorance is impo-
tence. What a man w, stamps an impress upon what he does,
even in the humblest forms of industry. The character of the
work depends on the workman. Whatever elevates the laborer
improves his labor. In proportion as you degrade the opera-
tive, you depreciate his work. The wealth and welfere of indi-
viduals and communities thus dependent on labor, can be
most fully secured only by educated labor. You can dignify
work in no way so surely as by educating and thus elevating
the workman. As mind triumphs over matter, the amount of
manual labor requisite to secure equal results constantly les-
sens. The invention of labor-saving machinery, though tempo^
rarily depreciating the hand labor thus supplanted, ultimately
benefits every ona

Eminent physicists are successfully applying the latest re-
searches of science to the industrial arts. Their discoveries
have already contributed largely to our material prosperity, and
prove that the future improvement of the mechanic arts depends
on brain as well as brawn, — on the substitution of physical
forces for muscular strength. "Subdue the earth, and have
dominion over it," was the primeval command The progress
of civilization has always been commensurate with man's
dominion over nature, and his utilization of her forces and
resources. Science has not only built our railroads, locomotives,
steamships and telegraphs, but permeated all our factories, and
rendered labor incomparably more productive. To give one or
two illustrations, applications of chemistry and metallurgy

EDUCATION AND INDUSTRIAL ARTS. 145

have made the din of industry continuous all along the Nauga-
tuck Valley, in Connecticut, from Birmingham to Winsted.
Electro-metallurgy is bringing untold wealth to Meriden, Wal-
lingford, Hartford and New Haven.

During my connection with the Board of Education of
Massachusetts, the Secretary, Hon. George S. Bout well, sent
circulars to the leading corporations of the State, asking
the opinion of the superintendents as to the relation of educa-
tion to wages, the relative profitableness of employing ignorant
or intelligent laborers, and the comparative quality of the work
of these two classes of operatives. The replies, with striking
unanimity, showed that ignorant labor was always expensive ;
that the amount and quality of work performed were pro-
portioned to the intelligence of the laborers ; •* that intelligent
laborers learn more readily, are more skillfiil when learned, are
more easily controlled, perform more as we\] as better work,
require less looking after, keep their machines cleaner and more
judiciously oiJed, incur less liability to breakage of machinery,
less waste of oil and of stock. As a general rule there is a
higher sense of moral obligation, and more honesty, fidelity
and regard for the interest of employers, among the intelligent
than among the ignorant laborers." These replies showed that
among a large number of persons, and upon an average, " trust-
worthiness in labor, and honesty in the custody of property,
are proportioned to the intelligence of the operative."

Education favors inventions and improvements in machin-
ery. Intelligent mechanics are continually devising improved
methods of accomplishing given results. In a very large lock
establishment in Connecticut, where the work is done mostly
by the piece or job, so constant have been improvements in
the processes or machines, that the workmen have for some
years reduced their " proposals" in the annual contracts, with-
out decreasing, and sometimes increasing, their wages. Eecent
improvements in the rapidity of the processes are surprising.
In a cotton mill, one carder can now do the work which
would require five thousand persons by hand. Six hundred
of the old hand wheels cannot spin as much yarn in a day
as one girl can produce by machinery. In Hindostan a man
can spin one hank a day ; a modem spinner with his mule can

146 EDUCATION AND INDUSTRIAL ARTa

produce 3,000 hanks in the same time. In 1807, Boston and
Salem merchants imported cotton cloth from India ; now, mil-
lions of yards are exported to India and remote parts of Asia.
A machine recently invented is turning out fish-hooks in
New Haven at the rate of 62,000 a day, and another by the
same ingenious inventor can make 50,000 needles a day.
Other very curious inventions of his are saving hand labor
in the ratio of five hundred or even a thousand to one. A
thousand men in the old English style could hardly make
and stick as many pins per hour as one boy now does by
machinery ; for a single boy can " tend" an indefinite num-
ber of these almost thinking automatons. Within less than
thirty years, mobs of laborers have destroyed labor-saving
machines, or resisted their introduction, and menaced their
proprietors. Opposition to sewing machines and steam fire
engines is not yet forgotten. But the sewing machine is a
benefactor of the needle women. It has already made the
" song of the shirt" obsolete, and helped the seamstress to earn
far more than she ever could by hand. Such machines, by
reducing cost and increasing production, increase also the
demand for labor, as well as its efficiency and remuneration.

The Universal Exposition of Industry in Paris six years ago
taught some bitter but profitable lessons to the English Govern-
ment and people. Prominent among the six causes which influ-
enced Parliament in the adoption of a new national system of
education, was this International Exposition. It formed a
good school for England, and through England for all Europa
The investigations instituted by Parliament were thorough and
conclusive. The epitome of that Report (given below) was
circulated widely in various journals on the continent, and
reached Turkey, China and Japan. Perhaps no Eeport of
Parliament attained greater celebrity or exerted a wider and
happier influence. It was accepted as a demonstration of the
influence of education in promoting individual thrift and na-
tional prosperity. Even English reviews and newspapers, and
the largest and most intelligent manufacturers, were compelled
to admit that Britain fared ill in that comparison of the world's
industries. This was an unwelcome surprise to the nation.
Her superiority to all the world in manufactures had been long

EDUCATION AND INDUSTRIAL ARTS. Ii7

assumed as unquestioned. The most keen-sighted and practi
cal British observers admitted the mortifying fitct that England
was surpassed, either relatively or absolutely, by her Continen-
tal rivals. This was true, not in a few, but in many and vari-
ous branches of manufacturing and mechanical industry. There
was great unanimity in this view on the part of those English
" Jurors " and observers especially appointed to examine and
report the results of their observations.

Professor Tyndall says : " England will be outstripped both
in the arts of peace and war by the Continental nations, in
virtue of their better education." Dr. Lyon Playfair, a juror
in the Exhibition, " found some of our (British) chief mechani-
cal and civil engineers lamenting the want of progress in their
industries, and pointing to the wonderful advances which
other nations were making. The one cause upon which there
was most unanimity of conviction (among British manufactu-
rers) is that France, Prussia, Austria, Belgium and Switzerland
possess good systems of industrial education for the masters
and managers of factories and workshops, and that England pos-
sesses none ; " he also found British chemical, and even textile
manufacturers uttering similar complaints. The Rev. Canon
Norris, an inspector of schools, found evidence at the Exposition
that " in all that tends to convert the mere workman into the
artisan, Austria, France and Prussia were clearly passing us."
Mr. Edward Huth, familiar as a juror and otherwise with the
Expositions of 1851 and 1862, as well as with that of 1867, says
of Great Britain : " We no longer hold that preeminence which
was accorded to us in the Exhibition of 1851." He fears
especially for the woolen manufacturers of his country. Mr.
James E. McConnell, another juror, ** made a very careful ex-
amination and comparison of British locomotive engines, car-
riages, railway machinery, apparatus and material, with the
same articles exhibited by France, Germany and Belgium, and
became firmly convinced that former British superiority no
longer exists. It requires no skill to predict that unless we
adopt a system of technical education for our workmen in
this country, we shall soon not hold our own in cheapness of
cost as well as excellence of quality of our mechanical produc-
tions" Capt Frederick Beaumont says: "There can be no

148 EDUCATION AND INDUSTRIAL ARTS.

doubt as to the immense strides which foreign mechanical
engineering has lately made, by which France and Belgium are
rapidly overtaking th,e industrial power of Great Britain."

The evidence of loss of prestige for British manufactures was
too clear to be disputed. Leading men and journals at once
discussed the cause. There was general unanimity as to the
fact itself; and the cause was found to be the absence of
technical and general education in Great Britain, and the prev-
alence of both on the Continent

Says Mr. Huth: "It is the want of industrial education in
this country which prevents our manufacturers from making
the progress which other nations are making. Many of our
workmen have no education. Their education is superior.
With ihem it is not a machine that works a raachine^ hut brains
sit at the horn and intelligence stands at the spinniiig-wheeiy Mr.
Mundella, managing partner of a firm employing five thousand
work-people in the manufacture of hosiery, says : " I have for
five years been increasingly alarmed for our industrial suprem-
acy, and my experience of the Paris Exhibition has only con-
firmed and strengthened my fears. Our best machines are
improved on in France and Germany by men who have had the
advantage of a superior industrial education. The frightful
ignorance found in our factories is disheartening. The English
workman is gradually losing the race, through the superior in-
telligence which foreign governments are carefully developing
in their artisans. The contrast between the work-people of
Saxony and England is most humiliating : [one of the facto-
ries of Mr. Mundella's firm is in Saxony.] In Saxony, our
manager, an Englishman of superior intelligence, has never
met, in seven years, with a workman who could not read and
write well. If we are to maintain our position in industrial
competition, we must secure an educational system equally
effective and complete, otherwise we shall be defeated, and gen-
erations hence shall be struggling with ignorance, squalor, pau-
perism and crime." Mr. James Young is represented as the
possessor of the most lucrative establishment of one branch of
practical chemistry in the world. Originally a workman, he
learned chemistry and natural philosophy and other subjects
under various professors. This was the basis of his fortune,

EDUCATION AND INDUSTRIAL ARTS. 149

and in view of it he says : " It would be most ungrateful in me
if I did not recognize the importance of scientific and technical
education in improving and advancing manufactures." In
regard to the Paris Exhibition he says that " the rate of pro-
gress of other nations appeared so formidable that several meet-
ings of jurors, exhibitors and others, took place at the Louvre
Hotel on the subject." Mr. J. Scott Russell made a collective
expression of the opinions of jurors to this effect, that "the
progress of the leading Continental nations in the last sixteen
years since the first Exhibition of 1851, has been remarkably
greater than ours, and they seem to exhibit growing skill and
progress in proportion to the excellence of the education and
training they give to their manufacturing population. Some-
thing must be done, or our working classes will be grievously
wronged, and the whole nation suffer. In the race we are no-
where. Our defeat is as ignominious and as disastrous as it is
possible to conceive. The mere mechanical workman stands
not the slighest chance with a workman of cultivated taste.
On the Continent the young artisans are distinguishing them-
selves and their countries by the excellence of their work, the
higher quality of their manufactured materials, the economy of
their execution, and the beautifulness of their designs. Poor
England, standing by idle, is too late. Her workingmen, fore-
men and masters, grown up uneducated, cannot now be edu-
cated — are too old to learn. We have lost a generation. Whose
was the fault ? whose the blame ? Why did not our statesmen
and aristocracy, already provided with special universities and
schools for their own training, foresee that our trade was going
away to more skilled nations, and warn us in time? The con-
trast between England and Switzerland is this : England spends
more than five times as much on pauperism and crime as she
does on education, and Switzerland spends seven times as much
on education as on pauperism and crime."

These revelations that British manufactures were losing
ground from the lack of proper education claimed the atten-
tion of Parliament, and accordingly in March, 1868, a select
committee of nineteen was appointed to inquire into the pro-
visions for giving instruction in theoretical and applied science
to the industrial classes. That committee continued in session

10

150 EDUCATION AKD INDUSTRIAL ARTS.

for over tbree months, sending for persons and papers f5pom all
parts of the kingdom. The minutes of evidence fill nearly 500
double column folio pages. The epitome of their conclusions
given below has an important lesson for us, and suggests the
practical inquiry, what is America doing for technical educa-
tion ? They should lead us to foster our Schools of Agricul-
ture and Mechanic Arts, Industrial and Evening Schools for
Mechanics and Apprentices, and to introduce drawing and prac-
tical science into our public schools. If in proportion to our
area and population. New England manufactures now hold the
foremost place in this country, let us consider that fiflbeeu years
ago, the same preeminence belonged to Great Britain, and not
forget why it does so no longer.

Manufactures constitute to-day the leading source of the
growing wealth of New England, and for its future increase we
must look mainly to them. But this will depend on the skill
of our artisans, the ingenuity of our inventors, and the con-
sequent superiority of our fabrics. Connecticut clocks, for
example, command the market of the world. England alone
in a single year has bought 160,000. An order was lately
received in New Haven from Birmingham, England, for
300,000 fish-hooks. Similar orders come to the same firm
every week from foreign lands. Seven years ago, England had
a monopoly of this business both for Europe and America.
Two Connecticut firms make over a million eyelets or paper-
fasteners daily. A multitude of similar facts might be cited
where the cost of material is slight and skill and inventive tal-
ent make the process easy and the profits large. If our wares
continue to be better and cheaper, we gain and retain the mar-
ket of the world ; if we fail to progress, we shall lose it.
flow to maintain our manufactures in the highest perfection
and by keeping up with the times command the market, is
the problem for us to solve. Stagnation or mediocrity here
means retrogression. The Committee of the British Parlia-
ment say :

" The industrial system of the present age is based on the
substitution of mechanical for animal power ; its development
is due in this country to its stores of coal and metallic ores, to
our geographical position and temperate climate, and to the

EDUCATION AND INDUSTRIAL ARTS. 151

unrivaled energy of our population. The acquisition of scien-
tific knowledge has been shown by the witnesses to be only
one of the elements of an industrial education and of indus-
trial progress. Nearly every witness speaks of the extraor-
dinarily rapid progress of continental nations in manufactures,
and attributes that rapidity not to the model workshops which
are met with in some foreign countries, and are but an indif-
ferent substitute for our own great factories, and for those
which are rising up in .every part of the continent, but,
besides other causes, to the scientific training of the proprie-
tors and managers in France, Switzerland, Belgium, and Ger-
many, and to the elementary instruction which is universal among
the working population of Switzerland and Oermanyy My limits
permit only a condensed summary of the more important con-
clu^ons of this suggestive report :

" 1. That with the view to enable the working class to benefit
by scientific instruction, it is of the utmost importance that
efl&cient elementary instruction should be within the reach of
every child.

2. That unless regular attendance of the children for a suffi-
cient period can be obtained, little can be done in the way of
their scientific instruction.

3. That elementary instruction in drawing, in physical ge-
ography, and in the phenomena of nature, should be given in
elementary schools.

4. That adult science classes, though of great use to artisans,
to foremen, and to the smaller manufacturers, cannot provide
all the scientific instruction which those should possess who
are responsible for the conduct of important industrial under-
takings. That all whose necessities do not oblige them to
leave school before the age of fourteen, should receive instruc-
tion in the elements of science as part of their general edu-
cation.

5. That the reorganization of secondary instruction and the
introduction of a larger amount of scientific teaching into
secondary schools are urgently required, and ought to receive
the immediate consideration of Parliament and of the country.

6. That it is desirable that certain endowed schools should
be selected in favorable situations for the purpose of being

152 EDUCATION AND INDUSTRIAL ARTS.

reconstituted as science scbools, having in view the special
requirements of the district; so that the children of every
grade may be able to rise from the lowest to the highest
school.

7. That the managers of training colleges for the teachers of
elementary schools should give special attention to the instruc-
tion of those teachers in theoretical and applied science, where
such instruction does not exist already."

This Parliamentary Eeport is a remarkable document The
abundance of her coal and the cheapness of labor and raw
material, confirmed England in the assumption of permanent
preeminence in manufacturing. This report has dispelled that
complacency. It convicts the government of the fatal blunder
of neglecting popular education. "While fostering Cambridge
and Oxford it has overlooked the masses. Here is a demon-
stration of the bearing of popular education on national in-
«dustry.

It proves that education is economy and that ignorance means
•waste; that the skilled workman so forecasts and plans his
•work that every blow tells, while he economizes both his
iStrength and stock ; that even in the humblest labor he will
do more work, in better style, with less damage to tools or
machinery, than the boor who can use only brute muscle.

EDUCATION AND INVENTION.

On this subject facts furnisli the most convincing arguments.
The educational history of Connecticut gives a demonstration
of the influence of education in developing inventive talent
The schools of Connecticut were once the best in this country.
The founders of that State were the pioneers in the great move-
ment of popular education. Their example has not only been
a power in this land, but is known and honored in all Christen-
dom. It has led to the organization of other and even better
systems in the newer States. The text-books of those times,
even those published in Boston, New York and Philadelphia,
lauded the Common School system of Connecticut as the best
in the country. President Porter, in his Prize Essay on Com-
mon Schools, says : *' Connecticut was once the star of hope
and guidance to the world. She was the first to enter the lists
and was foremost in the race." These expenditures for educa-
cation proved to be wise investments. Up to 1860, Connecti-
cut was relatively the richest State in the Union. "With poor
soil, little mineral wealth, and meager natural resources, com-
pared with many other States, universal education rendered her
varied industries the most productive. In visiting the towns
of this State, one is struck with the number and kinds of
manufacturing establishments, and the endless diversity of
their fabrics, varying from pins and needles to car wheels and
cannons. Yankee notions some of them may be called, but
it requires ingenuity and skill to invent and make them, and
"they pay." The ingenuity and inventive talent of Connecti-
cut is remarkable and unrivalled. For a long series of years,
in proportion to its population, this State has taken the lead in
the number, variety and value of its inventions, as is proved by
the statistics of the Patent Office. In 1867, the number of
patents issued to citizens of Connecticut, New York and Massa-
chusetts, and the proportion to population was as follows :

154 EDUCATION AND INVENTION.

To citizens of Connecticut, 662, being one to each 695
" '' " Massachusetts, 1,451, " ** " " 848
" " '* New York, 2,803, " " " " 1,382

This is on the basis of the census of 1860, and the proportion
is in the nearest whole numbers. The whole number of patents
granted during the year 1867 was 12,301. The states here
named are the ones which stood highest in the list of the Patent
Office.

In the year 1871, the whole number of patents granted to the
citizens of the United States was 12,511, and in part as follows :

To citizens of Connecticut,

667, being

one to each

806

" " " Dist Colnmbia,

136 "

970

" " " Ma.ssacliiisetts,

1,386 "

1,051

" " " Ehode Island,

184 "

1,181

" " " New York,

2,954 "

1,450

" " " New Jersey,

496 "

1,827

The following are tte figures

, for 1872.

Connecticut, 648 patents issued, being one to every

829

Massachusetts, 1,435 "

U U

u u

1.014

Ehode Island, 179 "

a u

u u

1,214

New Jersey, 682 "

u t:

u u

1,328

New York, 3,079 "

u u

LL U

1,423

These figures fairly illustrate the average preeminence of
Connecticut in inventiveness, and clearly show the pecuniary
value of intelligence, verifying the words of Burke : " Taxes
raised for purposes of education are like vapors, which rise
only to des<3end again in fertilizing showers to bless and beau-
tify the land."

The influence of public schools in promoting individual
thrift and general prosperity is well shown by the following
statements of Gen. John Eaton, United States Commissioner
of Education :

" The number of patents issued to the inhabitants of Arkan-
sas was one to every 37,267 persons, while in Connecticut there
was one patent issued to every 695 persons. In Arkansas
there are sixteen adults unable to write to every one hundred
inhabitants ; in Connecticut there are four adults unable to

EDUCATION AND tlNVENTION. 155

write to every one hundred inhabitants.* In Arkansas the
receipts of internal revenue are twenty-six cents and nine mills
per capita ; in Connecticut the receipts are two dollars and
fifty-four cents per capita. In Arkansas there resulted during
the last year to the Post Office Department a dead loss of over
forty-nine cents for each inhabitant of the State, a loss in
amount almost double the internal revenue receipts from the
State ! In Connecticut their accrued a net profit to tlie Post
Office Department of twenty-six cents per capita. In Florida
there are twenty- three adults unable to write to every one hun-
dred inhabitants. In that State one patent was issued to every
31,291 inhabitants, or only six in the entire State. The inter-
nal revenue collected amounted to sixty-four cents per capita
of the entire population. From that State the Post Office
Department suffered a loss of ninety-two cents per capita.
Contrast this with California, where the number of patents
issued was one to every 2,422 inhabitants, and the amount of
internal revenue collected was six dollars and forty-three cents
per capita ! But in California there are only four adults unable
to write Uy everv one hundred of the inhabitants. In Tennes-
see twelve adults are unable to read and write to everv one
hundred of the inhabitants, and the State pays internal revenue
at the rate of sixty-nine cents per capita ; while Ohio, in which
there are four illiterate adults to every one hundred inhabitants,
pays five dollars and sixty-eight cents internal revenue per
capita,"

* These are believed to be of foreign origin.

LABOR AND CAPITAL THEORETICALLY HAR-
MONIZED.

The adjustment of labor and capital is one of the pressing
questions of the age, now arresting public attention more than
ever. No question in political economy touches the masses so
broadly throughout the civilized world. The difficulty in-
volved cannot be adjusted by force, as has been vainly at-
tempted in some European countries, nor by money or num-
bers. It will nowhere stay settled till it is settled rightly on a
basis which, in the long run and on a broad scale, will secure
the highest interests of both parties. Everything possible
should be done to ameliorate the condition of the operative,
hard at best. No one thing will help him so much as that
schooling which awakens hope and ambition to better his con-
dition, to improve himself and his home and to educate his
children.

My work and my sympathies are much with the laboring-
classes. A desire to promote their true interests, as well as the
education of their children, has led me often to discuss the
labor question. While seeking especially to help the working-
men, I have had the happiness of gaining their confidence as
well as that of our manufacturers.

It has long been both my duty and desire to care for neg-
lected children. For this purpose I have visited many manu-
factories in different parts of Connecticut. As the supervision
of the schooling of minors employed in factories, or at any
service in Connecticut, devolves on the State Board of Educa-
tion, it has been my aim to watch this important interest, and
confer both with manufacturers and operatives in order to
secure their co-operation.

Labor is both superior and prior to capital, and alone origin-
ally produces capital. For this result, labor must be intelli-
gent, and brain-work and hand-work co-operate. Many a penni-
less laborer, by industry, intelligence and economy, has become

LABOH AND CAPITAL THEORETICALLY HARMONIZED. 157

an independent capitalist. Our most successful manufacturers
have toiled up from penury to affluence. This aspiration and
opportunity are open to all who are educated enough to combine
skill with labor. But the condition and opportunities of the
laborer improve with the increase of industrial capital, which
always befriends labor when it multiplies the opportunities for
education and profitable employment. The chances for the
laborer in this country are far better than they were sixty years
ago, before the commencement of our manufacturing system,
when the poor slept without sheets. Now that manufacturers
have made sheeting five times cheaper, and more than doubled
wages, the operative has sheets and shirts as white as his em-
ployers, and the children of both attend the same school.

Parisian Internationals denounced capital as the enemy of
labor, but in the same breath thev boasted that it was the
unaided product of labor, and therefore rightly belonged to
its producers, whoever may be the legal owners. It is a strik-
ing fact that in Paris itself, not long after this International pro-
clamation, nothing but the capital thus attacked kept its assail-
ants from starvation during the siege, when production ceased.
Laws and unions, strikes and communes cannot equalize things
in their nature essentially unequal ; nor put the infelicities of
ignorance and the misfortunes of improvidence and indolence
on a level with the advantages of education, industry and fore-
thought. ** Equality of conditions," "property is robbery,"
was the mad outcry of the commune. It did succeed in sweep-
ing away capital, and had it longer held sway, it would have
destroyed also the motive and the means alike for the future
accumulation and protection of capital and introduced that
anarchy which is fatal to all culture and progress. The equality
of conditions it would secure, would be the low level of a com-
mon barbarism. Inequalities are ordained by nature, and must
continue as long as the capacities and habits of men differ.
Even to enforce equality of wages, lessens the motives to in-
dustry, skill and fidelity, interferes with individual liberty and
restrains the freedom of competition.

If capital were annihilated to-moiTow, labor would suffer
first and most. Capital and labor therefore are not enemies.
There is only an apparent opposition of interests which van-

158 LABOR AND CAPITAL THEORETICALLY HARMONIZED.

ishes on a careful examination. Instead of open strikes or
smothered jealousies, dissolving all social ties, there should be
kindness and sympathy between the employer and the em-
ployed. There should be no impassable gulf between the rich
and the poor, no tyranny of capital over labor, nor hostility
and hatred of labor to capital The capitalist should fully
know the wants and trials of the laborer's lot, and the work-
man should understand the risks, anxieties and conditions of
success on the part of the manufacturer. There should be
liberal pay on the one side and fair profits on the other. The
interests of both classes are bound togetlier. If either one is
harmed, the other must ultimately suffer. Certainly the laborer
cannot long suffer in health, education or pay without harm to
the employer, and large losses to employers inevitably extend
to the operatives. They are copartners, and cannot afford to
be antagonists. Capital is as dependent on labor as labor is on
capital, and only as both work in harmony can the highest
good of each be secured. There is need of mutual considera-
tion and often of mutual concession. Wages no doubt have
been too low, and have been deservedly raised. In the long
run it is not for the interest of the operative that wages should
be so high or the hours of labor so few as to suddenly or
seriously increase the cost, and thus lesson the amount, of pro-
duction. In this age Commeitje is a great equalizer. Manu-
facturing will expand wherever it can be carried on most eco-
nomically. With present facilities of exchange and intercom-
munication, manufacturing will gravitate to those lands which
famish the best facilities, and open the most favorable condi-
tions for production, as naturally as water finds its level. In
the industries of this age, not states only, but nations are rivals.
The late strikes in New York city drove important manufac-
turing enterprises to other cities and states, and thus lessened
the demand for labor. The poor are often the greatest sufferers
when capital is thus withdrawn and industrial enterprise re-
pressed. American manufactories are now increasing in num-
ber, variety and value. In the future development of our
resources, certainly in the Easten] States, we must look largely
to them for the retention of our best men at home, and the
attraction of labor from abroad.

LABOR AND CAPITAL THEOKETICALLY HARMONIZED. 159

The simple elements of political economy should be taught
in our schools, if not formally from text-books, at least in
oral lessons. The few principles which govern supply and
demand, cost and production, profit and loss, could easily
be taught without interfering with the prescribed studies. No
mechanic can afford to be ignorant of these elementary econo-
mies. Our youth should early understand that labor and capi-
tal are inseparably yoked together. Being co-partners, there
should always be a fair division of profits between them. If
each can but understand the other, the folly of alienation and
conflict will be seen. The outrages sometimes connected with
strikes are usually the acts of ignorant men, with whom brute
force seems the most effective, if not the only means of rectify-
ing wrong. Education should check these tendencies to vio-
lence and find better means for the redress of injuries, real, or
fancied. It is the testimony of those who have the widest op-
portunities of observation, that the educated laborer is less liable
to join in unreasonable and unseasonable strikes, not only be-
cause they drive away capital and ultimately diminish the
demand for labor, but remembering that he himself is a con-
sumer, he may not wisely set an example which would tend to
a general enhancement in the price of all products and prove
disastrous to all. Education becomes more essential in pro-
portion as our manufacturing processes become more scientific.
We should encourage the aspiration of working men to better
their circumstances and rise above the condition of drudges, by
making labor more honorable and remunerative. Already the
intelligent American mechanic is far better off than the laborera
of Europe, better paid, fed, clothed, housed, better appreciated
and better situated in every respect.

I can best illustrate general principles by citing facts com-
ing under my observation in Connecticut. In many of our
manufacturing villages, employers have allayed prejudice and
disarmed hostility by a liberal policy. As enlightened, liberal,
philanthropic men, they have generously aided both the school
and the church, provided reading-rooms and lectures for the
special benefit of their operatives, and erected boarding and
tenement-houses in a stvle favorable for their health and com-
fort. They have encouraged the purchase of homesteads or

160 LABOR AND CAPITAL THEORETICALLY HARMONIZED.

erection of houses, by selling land and loaning a large percent-
age of the cost of building on favorable terms. There are
many thriving manufacturing villages in Connecticut where a
strike, or anything like antagonism of labor to capital, has
never been known. Instead of isolating themselves from their
operatives, these capitalists have treated them as partners, cast
in their lot with them, guarded their health, provided for their
material comfort and intellectual and moral welfare. The three
Governors of Connecticut — Jewell, English, and Buckingham
— extensive manufacturers, have each illustrated the wisdom
of a liberal policy toward their employees. The harmony
and good-will thus secured have proved an important part of
their eflPective capital. I have had occasion to know that their
workmen feel a pride in their service, and a genuine interest
in their success When all manufacturers feel it to be their
duty and interest to show like sympathy and interest toward
their employees, the problem of harmonizing labor and capital
will be solved.

It is a significant fact that in referring to the eflS.cient mea-
sures adopted for the schooling of minors employed in factories
or at any service — measures most liberally sustained by the
manufacturers of the state — Governor Jewell, in his message in
1871, was able to congratulate the Legislature on the general
good feeling between employees and employers, using the fol-
lowing language : " The law in regard to minor children has
worked happily and has been wisely administered by the Board
of Education. It has received alike the sanction of operatives
and manufacturers. While strikes and strifes between capital
and labor, injurious alike to all parties, abound in other states,
perfect harmony exists hei^e between employer and employedJ'^
Substantially the same language might have been truthfully
used in each succeeding annual message.

LABOR AND CAPITAL PRACTICALLY HAR-

MONIZED.*

How to harmonize labor and capital is now one of the great
questions of the aga Their alienation has recently caused idle-
ness, distress and crime on one side, and lock-outs, derange-
ment of business and enormous losses on the other. The many
millions lately lost in New York by mistakes on this question
furnish only a new version of the old story of antagonisms
between those who should be partners. The Internationals in
session this week at the Hague have raised questions which
will perplex the Emperors of Russia, Austria and Germany, in
their interviews at Berlin next week, quite as much as Bis*
mark's "guarantee for the peace of Europe." My interest in
the practical solution of this hard problem, now puzzling
kings and peoples through the civilized world, brought me to
this northeastern corner of Vermont.

Here is a great manufactory of scales, by far the largest
establishment of the kind in the world, employing about six
hundred men, and nearly four hundred in branch departments
elsewhere, and manufacturing over 60,000 scales annually.
They are of all sorts and sizes — over three hundred varieties —
from the most delicate standard of the druggist or banker, to
the ponderous hay, railroad-car, or canal-boat scales, weighing
500 tons at a time. They are adapted to the standards of all
nations, and marked with the signs of each. This week a large
invoice was sent to Japan, and for a long time they have been
sold in China, Australia, India, Persia, Turkey, Arabia (where
they have been carried on mules* or camels' backs), in the Bar-
bary States, Cape Colony, Sandwich Islands, all the South
American States, and still more largely in the great commercial
nations of the earth. For use in Europe, India and South
America, the larger proportion are based on the metric system,
which, I think, ought to be and in time will become the uni-

* This article was written as a letter from St. Johnsbury, Vermont, for the
Christian Union.

162 LABOR AND CAPITAL PRACTICALLY HARMONIZED.

versal system, and which is already adopted by nearly
350,000,000 of the world's population. The Fairbanks Com-
pany are helping on this consummation. Many of their scales
are fitted with double beams, giving both the common and the
metric standards, thus facilitating the comparison and use of
each. The yearly sales amount to about $2,000,000, and the
demand is rapidly increasing. The business was never so pros-
perous as during the present season.

It has long been a marvel how such a concern could be made
a permanent success for nearly fifty years in this remote corner
of Vermont, so far from tide- water: with heavy and expensive
freightage, the items of coal and iron being yearly about 10,000
Urns ; with numerous other supplies from Boston or New York ;
and the necessity of transporting the manufactured products to
the sea-board. Throughout New England the tendency of
manufacturers has been from the interior to the sea-side. The
cost of transportation has led them to abandon old sites and
water-privileges far inland and build nearer the great markets.
For this reason, though they must there run by steam only,
manufactories are multiplying in New Haven and along the
shore to New York more rapidly than elsewhere in Connecti-
cut But in St. Johnsbury, notwithstanding these great disad-
vantages, the business has steadily grown and become a success
which, in view of the difficulties overcome, is unparalleled in
this country.

Now, what is the explanation of this marvelous prosperity ?
What is the condition of the workmen ? These points I came
here to investigate. For this purpose I inspected the works,
covering ten acres, examined the processes, talked freely with
the hands as well as with the owners and with the citizens of
St Johnsbury not connected with the factory. To observe the
home-life of the operatives I entered their houses and conversed
with their families. These inquiries brought out facts and in-
ferences which will, I think, be of interest and use alike to
employers and employed generally.

This company maintains here the highest reputation for in-
tegrity. Many names honored abroad are tarnished at home.
Only the strictest honesty and fair dealing can stand the test of
daily business intercourse with hundreds of hands for nearly

LABOR AND CAPITAL PRACTICALLY HARMONIZED. 163

half a century. "They do everything on the square/' was, in
substance, the answer of many citizens and workmen to my
inquiries on this point. The company has fairly earned and
gained the confidence of their men and of this entire community,
and a good name at home naturally follows them everywhere.
The workmen say that they are never permitted to do any
sham-work, even for the most distant market. To quote the
pithy phrases of the men, "no shoddy here," "no veneering,"
"no puttying." The "test room " illustrates the thoroughness
of their work. To avoid jar of machinery or movements of the
air, all the scales are subjected to the nicest tests before being
"sealed." The minutest films of metal are used for the more
delicate trials. Masses of iron weighing hundreds of pounds
are placed alternately on the diflFerent corners of the railroad
scale platform, and if the difference in position changes the
" record," the scale is condemned. The thoroughness of the
work and this severity of the test is the explanation of the
world-wide reputation of the Fairbanks' scales for accuracy.
At the bottom of a chest of Japan tea, bought in New York
and retailed in St. Johnsbury this month, was the following
printed statement over the signature of the Yokahama tea
merchant : " This chest contains forty -eight pounds of tea, as
weighed by Fairbanks' scales. We warrant this tea to be free
from any artificial coloring." It was a pleasant coincidence
that this slip should come to a St Johnsbury store, though it
has long been known that "Fairbanks" was the recognized
standard for tea-packing in China as well as Japan. Indeed,
their scales have done more to correct the standards, and secure
both uniformity and accuracy in the weights of the world, than
all the other agencies combined.

There is a superior class of workmen in this establishment
All are males. Their work is proof of skill. Their looks and
conversation indicate intelligence. They are mostlj' Americans,
and come from the surrounding towns. More than half of them
are married, and settled here as permanent residents, interested
in the schools and in all that relates to the prosperity of the
place. Many of them own their houses, with spacious grounds
for yard and garden, and often a bam for the poultry and cow.
These houses are pleasing in their exterior, neatly furnished,

164 LABOR AND CAPITAL PRACTICALLY HARMONIZED.

and raany of them supplied with pianos and tapestry carpets.
How different from the nomadic factory population, swarming
from Canada and from other lands to densely crowded tenement
houses, wlio never bind themselves to civilization bv a home,
much less by a house of their own I The tenement houses,
also, are inviting and comfortable, and surrounded with un-
usually large grounds. The town is managed on temperance
principles, and drunkenness, disorder and strife among the
hands are almost unknown. Most of them are church-goers,
many of them church members.

I examined the pay-roll and found the wages very liberal.
The workmen seem well satisfied on that score. Wherever it
is possible, the work is paid for by the piece. The work itself
is largely done by machinery and that $ui generis, invented here
and for the special and peculiar results here reached. The men
are encouraged to expedite their processes by new inventions
and share largely in the benefits of all such improvements. I
conversed with one of the hands who invented a curious ap-
paratus by which he marks a hundred register-bars with greater
accuracy and in but little more time than he could formerly do
one. He now finds working by the job especially profitable.
Paying by the piece has worked well here. The men say it is
fairer to pay for results ihan by houra The worth of labor
depends upon its products. This plan stimulates industry,
promotes skill, and fosters inventiveness. It apportions rewards
to the quantity and quality of work done. But more than all,
this plan is recognized by the men as just and satisfactory.
Witb the time left practically to their own choice, there is no
eight-hour movement here. No "Labor League" or Union
has ever existed — no strike ever been suggested. This would
be a poor place for the Internationals to preach the gospel of
idleness or agrarianism. Imagine one of these delegates just
arrived at St. Johnsbury and beginning his arguments for a

strike with Mr. , whose house I visited. I fancy him

replying somewhat as he did to my inquiry. " Why is it you
never have any strikes here? " " Well, we have a good set of
men to start with — temperate and moral. Then we are well
paid. Wages have often been advanced. The owners take an
interest in the men. They are liberal and public spirited, and

LABOR AND CAPITAL PRACTICALLY HARMONIZED. 165

are doing a great deal for the place, and we feel an interest in
the success of the concern which has been the making of St.
Johnsbury."

There has evidently been mutual sympathy and interes.t be-
tween employer and employed. Governor Fairbanks used to
say to the men, "You should always come to me as to a
father." He maintained relations of kindness with them, visit-
ing the sick, helping the needy, counseling the erring, en-
couraging their thrift, enjoining habits of economy. He taught
them that it was their interest and duty to " lay up something
every month," and that the best way to rise in the social scale
was to unite economy with increasing wages. He himself both
preached and practiced economy. He was a conspicuous ex-
ample at once of strict frugality and princely liberality. His
benefactions were munificent, both at home and abroad. The
fact that so many of the workmen are " fore-handed," besides
owning their homesteads, is due to his teaching and example.
The worth and dignity of work he illustrated in theory and
practice. The notion that labor was menial, or that the tools
of a trade were badges of servility, he despised. His sons
worked in the shop and thoroughly learned the trade. The
brothers of the Governor were in full sympathy with him,
and the same spirit characterizes the sons and the surviving
brother who now manage the concern. There is still the fullest
and happiest conciliation between labor and capital. It is not
strange that the workmen ** hold on." Their permanency is a
striking fact. Many have been here from twenty to forty
years. I conversed with one man over seventy years of age
— a foreman — who has worked here " from the start," forty -
three years. A few months since he tendered his resignation on
account of the infirmities of age. *^ I can't earn my salary
now." Mr. Franklin Fairbanks replied to him, "No, sir; we
cannot accept your resignation. Work more or less, as you
are abla Rest when you please. I learned my trade of you,
and wish you to continue in our service and draw your pay as
long as you live."

Years ago the men were aided in forming and sustaining a
Lyceum, and liberal prizes were offered for the best essays read.
Recently, Horace Fairbanks has founded a library, and opened

11

166 LABOR AND CAPITAL PRACTICALLY HARMONIZED.

a large reading-room free to all. The AthensBum containing
the library, reading-room, and also a spacious lecture-hall, is
an elegant structure, 95 by 40 feet, two stories high. The
books, now numbering 8,300, are choice and costly. Though
recently opened, over one thousand " takers " have registered
their names ; 230 volumes have been drawn in a single day.
In the reading-room, besides a good supply of American peri-
odicals, daily, weekly and quarterly, I noticed on the tables
many European journals, including four English quarterlies,
six London weeklies and ten monthlies. The librarv and read-
ing-room are open every week-day and evening, except Wed-
nesday evening, when all are invited to attend the weekly
"lecture" which is held at the same hour in all the churches.
Having visited nearly every town of Massachusetts and Con-
necticut, and traveled widely in this country and in Europe,
I have nowhere found in a village of this size an Athenaeum
.so costly, a reading-room so inviting, and a library so choice
and excellent as this. W. F. Poole, the bibliographer, aided
in the selection of the books.

A large addition to the Athenaeum is now going up, 37 feet
by 26, besides two very large " bays " for an Art Gallery, being
lighted only from the doma One room is to be appropriated
to sculpture and the rest to paintings.

Thaddeus Fairbanks, one of the three founders of the scale
factory, and who still survives, has liberally endowed an acad-
emy which already has o^er one hundred pupils. A new
academic hall and a large dormitory are now building. This
promises to become the ** Williston Seminary '* for northeastern
Vermont, furnishing to the ambitious youth of this State the
best academic advantages at the lowest cost There is also
a free High School and a good system of Public Schools.

These various provisions for the improvement, happiness
and prosperity of this people, coupled with liberality and fair-
ness in daily business intercourse, explain the absence of dis-
content and alienation, and the uniform sympathy, good feel-
ing and harmony which prevail.

I have nowhere seen a better practical solution of the Labor
Question,

AEBITEATION AND CONCILIATION.

In England, no one plan has tended so widely to promote
harmony between labor and capital as that of Boards of Arbi-
tration and Conciliation, originated by A. J. Mundella, M.P.,
some twelve years ago. After careful inquiry among the labor-
ing classes as to the working of this system, its wisdom and
efficiency seem to be clearly established. It has nowhere
failed. Though introduced in the face of much opposition, it'
holds all the ground gained. It stands the test of experience.
Had it been adopted three years ago in New York city, it

would have Drevented a most disastrous strike and saved mil-

A.

lions of money to our laborers as well as manufacturers. It
would have prevented the alienati(ms, jealousies, and conflicts
which, in the long run, are more disastrous to society than the
pecuniary loss. A detailed account of this plan and its work-
ings, mainly as given me by the author, will be timely. If
adopted here, it will aid in solving the perplexing question of
harmonizing labor and capital. It will practically demonstrate
that, instead of being natural enemies, the interests of both
parties are practically one, and that each is alike concerned in
the success of the other.

Before his election to Parliament, Mr. Mundella was the
managing partner of a firm in the city of Nottingham, employ-
ing five thousand operatives in the manufacture of hosiery.
By his invitation, I visited this extensive factory, and attended
the National Trades' Union Congress, held in Nottingham for
the week beginning January 8th. The Mayor and city author-
ities gave the delegates, numbering about one hundred, an ele-
gant dinner, on Monday evening. On Wednesday morning,
four members of Parliament — Mr. Mundella, MV. Samuel Mor-
ley, Mr. C. Seeley, and Mr. Auberon Herbert, — gave the Con-
gress a handsome breakfast, and on Thursday evening a supper.
Such hospitalities promoted conciliation and good feeling.
These members of Parliament and " the American gentleman*'

168 ARBITRATION AND CONCILIATION.

were made honorary members, and all took part in the discus-
sions. Their counsels were received with special interest. Mr.
Morley was enthusiastically applauded when he said that
among them he was '* sanguine that the days of strikes were
ended ;" and also when he urged them " to consider their obli-
gations and duties as well as their rights, and to husband their
resources, to recognize their duties to themselves, their families,
to society and to God." One of the delegates, Mr. Guile,
emphasized the remark of Mr. Morley, that " they had duties to
perform as well as rights to expect ; that they had not only to
ask, but to give ; not only to seek, but to render unto all, that
justice which they themselves expected." He said "this visit
of our Congress to Nottingham has done more to bring the
different and too often hostile classes together than anything
else that has transpired for a quarter of a century. Had em-
ploy el's formerly met us in this way, as men, as breth-
ren, instead of as master meeting slave, strikes would not have
so marred our fair land."

Instead of the indifference, not to say aversion and suspicion,
too common towards them in America, I could not but wish
that our Trades Unions might have the benefit of as wise and
experienced advisers, and as genuine tokens of sympathy.
The point which interested me most was the general approval
which the members of this body gave to Mr. Mundella's plan
of arbitration. I was repeatedly assured that no strikes have
anywhere occurred where this plan has been adopted. As
proof of its success, the Board of Arbitration in the great
manufacturing city of Nottingham say :

** During the eleven years of its existence, no strike or lock-
out has taken place, no personal attacks have been made, and
no inflammatory handbills circulated. Never in the history of
the trade has there existed so much good feeling betwixt em-
ployers and employed as at the present moment. And during
the years when labor has been scarce, and agitation on the
question of wages prevalent throughout England, the manu-
facturers who have adopted this plan of arbitration and con-
ciliation have been able to accept contracts without apprehen-
sion and execute them without delav."

ARBITRATION AND CONCILIATION. 169

The plan was first tried among the hosiery manufacturers
and operatives centering in the counties of Nottingham, Leices-
ter, and Derby. Perhaps no other trade in England has for
nearly a century experienced so much disturbance and aliena-
tion as this. Time had increased the irritation. The griev-
ances of the past embittered those of the present. Strikes had
been numerous and prolonged, often disastrous to both parties,
and sometimes leading to fatal consequences. Lock-outs fol-
lowed strikes ; work stopped ; the streets were thronged with
idlers. The innocent suffered with the guilty. Destitution at
home and a sense of injury emboldened some to despera-
tion. The system of employing " middle masters " led to great
abuse, and the cupidity of these employees at times occasioned
gross oppression. The grievances of the workmen were real,
even though their demands 'were often extravagant. Strikes
seemed their chief means of redress. These were aggravated
by occasional *' frame-breaking," burning in effigy, abusive
personalities, and inflammatory placards.

Capital and labor alike suffered from these conflicts. By
reason of sharp competition with foreign manufacturers, espe-
cially with the cheap labor of Saxony, strikes crippled the
capitalists and then brought distress to the operatives. During
1860, there were four strikes in the wide frame branch alone.
The manufacturers of Nottingham and vicinity held a meeting
to devise means to terminate the conflict. As the other
branches contributed to the support of the strikers, a lock-out
was proposed. Before resorting to such an extreme course, Mr.
Mundella proposed that conciliatory measures be tried, and that
a friendly conference be held with the operatives. He was
authorized to consult with them. A favorite with the masses,
recognized as a man of philanthropic character, his invitation
was cheerfully accepted, and a committee of employers and
workmen soon met, and after a protracted but friendly discus-
sion, occupying several days, all difficulties were adjusted and
a Board of Arbitration and Conciliation was formed. This
Board met for the first time on the third of December, 1860,
in the most attractive of the rooms of the Chamber of Com-
merce, in Nottingham, where its sessions are still held. The
Board consisted of nine representatives chosen by the Manu-

170 ARBITRATION AND CONCILIATION.

facturers, aud the same number selected by the operatives in
the Trades Unions.

One of the first questions considered was the abominable
practice of "the truck system." Some of **the middle mas-
ters," though nominally giving regulation prices, defrauded
their hands by "' store-pay," advancing groceries and provisions
at high rates. These goods were poor as well as dear. This
system, though illegal, had proved dilB&cult of suppression. It
was carried on indirectly or through third parties with whom
the employers had a secret interest The Board advertised in
the newspapers their determination to prosecute the offenders,
and the manufacturers agreed to take all machinery from them.
One prosecution was instituted, and now this oppressive sys-
tem has been entirely stopped wherever these Boards are estab-
lished. The custom of '* paying off" at late hours on Saturday
night when no markets were available has also been stopped.
The Board publicly condemned this practice in the papers, and
personally or by letter remonstrated with offenders, and that
che<;ked the evil.

When first formed, the Board was generally considered a
doubtful experiment. Some manufacturers were openly hostile,
while "Utopian," "impracticable," " inquisitorial, prying into
the secrets of our business," " derogatory to our independence,"
were the varying epithets of others. These objections have
been satisfactorily answered by experience, and the resolutions
of this Board are responded to by both masters and workmen.

The discussions of the Board have always been conducted in
the most friendly spirit. There never has been the slightest
contention as to who should fill the office of President or Vice-
President. Questions of wages, methods of work, sources of
profit, laws of trade, of supply and demand, of home and
foreign competition, the trials of the workmen and risks of the
capitalist, are fully discussed. Whenever any breach of
economic laws has been suggested by workmen outside the
Board, the operative delegates have promptly denounced it,
while on both sides there has been the utmost freedom of
speech. No manufacturer or workman has ever been known
to suffer from the free expression of his views.

ARBITRATION AKD CONCILIATION. 171

By this interchange of thought, the workman becomes better
acquainted with the laws which govern production and trade,
and with the influence of foreign competition ; and the master
learns better how to appreciate- the difficulties and struggles of
the workmen. A Committee of Inquiry investigates all com-
plaints, and by a spirit of justice and conciliation, nine-tenths
of the questions, which if allowed to go on would produce
irritation and conflict, are thus amicably and promptly settled.
Questions which this Committee cannot adjust are referred to
the full Board. In former times strikes had proved equally
injurious to the workmen and capitalists. The workers suffered
as well as the strikers, by reason of the contributions levied
upon the former to sustain the latter. This levy, often forty
cents a week from the scanty earnings of the stocking-maker
and continued sometimes for months, was paid by pawning
clothes and furniture and at the cost of domestic comfort, if not
the necessaries of life. At present the annual contribution to
the Trades Union for a whole year does not exceed that of a
single week under the old system. The manufacturers no
longer regard these Unions as their natural enemies.

These results of this system of Mr. Mundella should com-
mend it to the favorable consideration of all parties concerned.
While it may not be a panacea for all the ills of labor and
capital, it has cured the worst cases in England, where its ap-
plication is now extensive. Good as a curative, it is better still
as a preventive.

The important subject of Industrial Partnei'ships and Co-
operation will be discussed in another volume. These plans
have been more fully tried in England and Germany than in
this country. The first method — capitalists allowing their
workmen a certain share of the profits — is already successfully
illustrated in America.

APPENDIX.

-•-•^

SHOULD AMERICAN YOUTH BE EDUCATED

ABROAD?

LETTER FROM J. P. THOMPSON, D.D.

Berlin^ July^ 1873.

The laudation of the German system of training has not been
without reason, in former times. The distinctive features of
this system are, minuteness and accuracy of detail in the foun-
dations of every study, patience and thoroughness of investiga-
tion in the pursuit of particular branches, familiarity with the
subject through iteration, examination, discussion and review,
and the discipline of the memory to a ready command of the
materials of knowledge. There can be no question that the
method of teaching Latin, for instance, by constant drilling in
the principles of the grammar, by oral and written translation
from German into Latin, by composition in Latin prose and
verse, by lectures given in Latin and followed by extempora-
neous exercises from the students in the same tongue— that
such training, begun in chUdhood and pursued for ten years,
gives to the German student a facility in Latin quotation,
speech, and writing, not common to the graduate of an Ameri-
can college. The German feels at home in his Latin and Greek,
so that he takes pleasure in keeping up his acquaintance with
classic authors. I happen to know of several little circles in
Berlin, in which gentlemen of official standing, judges, secre-
taries, generals, etc., find recreation in a weekly reunion for
reading Horace, Plautus, Terence, Homer, Plato, Tacitus, Thu-
cydides and also the more fragmentary classics in the original,
and I have been surprised at the facility with which one and

APPENDIX. 173

another, without special preparation, would comment upon crit-
ical niceties of the text or peculiarities of usage or construction.
But there are such clubs also in Boston and New York, and
the method of teaching Latin and Greek in the best academies
and colleges of America is much more nearly assimilated to
the German than it was thirty years ago. American professors
have mastered the German method, and have so far applied this
that students no longer need to go to Germany for it

Another feature of the German system is the pains-taking
and exhaustive treatment of the literature of the topic, so that
the student as far as possible is put in possession of all that has
been said and done, and of all that is known upon the subject
which he is pursuing. A German professor usually opens his
course of lectures with a long catalogue of books upon his
topic, with a brief characterization of each, thus bringing the
student as it were into personal relation with authors, and guid-
ing him in the use of the library.

But this minuteness and thoroughness has also its narrow
side. Said a German professor to me, "Our system tends
always to Wenigkeit ; we are continually searching after some
little thing, some tiny point — Wenigkeit" This tendency of
the German student to explore "the infinitely little," has
proved of immense service to the scholarship of the world ; all
literature reaps its benefits. My friend has himself twice vin-
dicated the New Testament history by the discovery of a
Wenigkeit in chronology, from contemporary Eoman history ;
and a work he has now in preparation is likely to do this for
the third time. Most enjoyable is his enthusiasm over the first
faint trace of some Wenigkeit which may help to fix some date
or to corroborate a fact ; and Christendom owes a debt of grat-
itude to such investigators. " J5u<," he added with emphasis,
" in America you do not need to make the Wenigheit the object of
your training. You have other uses for educated minds, and
require other methods. With us this is a necessity, ^^

This necessity of German scholarship so fortunate for the
general increase of knowledge, has arisen from the old political
and commercial condition of Germany, now fast passing away.
Formerly a young man of talent had before him few openings
for commercial or political life, so he betook himself to scholar-

12

i

174 APPENDIX.

ship. But here almost every incli of ground was pre-occupied,
by the multitude of students and the sub-division of topics.
How should he make his mark and gain a footing ? Having
taken his doctor's degree, he would study to qualify himself
for recognition as a privat docent in some university — ^the first
step toward a professorship. But now he must write a book.
Tholuck once said to me, " In America you ask, What has a
man done ? In Germany we ask. What has he written ? " The
book is the youijg scholar's introduction to those who are to
judge of his ability, and to determine his future. But what
shall he write? Every topic has been discussed, every library
is overstocked ; so he hunts up a Wenigkeit which others have
overlooked, some question of accent, of punctuation, of date,
and elaborates this into an octavo. Or failing of this he
broaches some new theory, and launches forth a speculative
treatise for his prufung^ or he writes over a subject that had
been exhausted twenty times before, for the sake of giving
some new version or interpretation to the well-worn theme ; as
for example, I see before me at this moment a new octavo of
350 pages, stating afresh the theological system of Augustine.

To this state of things, as well as to some native tendency of
the German mind, is due that strange mixture of fact and
fantasy that one finds in works of German scholarship ; — the
Wenigkeit hunted with a most praiseworthy thoroughness, but
the theoretical possibility, the Moglichkeit, assumed or asserted
with the most provoking dogmatism ; — ^Niebuhr upsets all old
traditions of Eoman history, Mommsen upsets Niebuhr, and
now my learned friend is writing a book to upset Mommsen
with new facte and theories ! German scholarship, and per-
haps, too, the German mind, though given to specious refinement,
nevertheless lacks that sharp, clear, logical discrimination which
is so characteristic of the Anglo-Saxon mind, and pre-eminently
of the New England type ; and it is a grave question for the
future of American scholarship and philosophy, of the Ameri-
can pulpit, and of American statesmanship, whether any con-
siderable numbers of American youth shall be deprived of that
discipline of the reasoning powers, that exercise in the logic of
common sense, which is of the very essence of American train-
ing, and be sent to Germany to hunt the Wenigkeit or chase

APPENDIX. 175

after the fantasy ? The accuracy, the minuteness, the patience,
the perseverance in quest of facts, the American boy should be
trained to as thoroughly and as conscientiously as is the Ger-
man — ^but he should also acquire the clearer, sharper, stronger
American way, the more thoroughly scientific way, of handling
and using facts, and of discriminating facts from vagaries.
Track almost any German professor or author, upon almost any
subject, and while you own your obligation for his patient
research, you are pretty likely to catch him in some illogical
deduction, some groundless assumption, some unconscious
substitution of a theory for a fact ; or at the moment you are
about to measure accurately the height and area of his knowl-
edge, he will dodge behind the clouds ! When the American
student is mature enough to take the fact and reject the fancy,
let him place himself under the German professor; but by
coming into such contact too soon, he may lose in breadth^ com-
prehensiveness andforce^ lohere he might gain in minuteness and
in specific fullness.

Not long ago I spent an evening in company with two or
three German professors and one of the most accomplished of
English scholars. The Englishman had occasion, in the most
modest way, to show his familiarity with Greek, which was his
specialty; but as various social and philosophical questions
came up, he showed a depth of understanding and a range of
reading that gave to his conversation the charm of a cultivated
lecture. I walked home with one of the German professors —
who stands at the head of his department, and whose works
are prized in England and America — and on the way he broke
out in this strain of impetuous melancholy : " / never meet a
well-bred Englishman without being m&rtifijed at the narroumess of
our Oermxin system of educatix)n. We learn one thing thoroughly ;
aim to know all about it ; but for the rest, we must ask some
one who has studied that ; whereas the English scholar, besides
being good in his own department, knows much about many
things, and can converse well upon many subjecta The fault
is in our system ; it is too nairow, I intend to edvjcaie my son
differently — more after the English meihodJ^

Said another German scholar to me, after I had expounded
the American system, and had shown him the course at Yale :

i

176 APPENDIX.

" I am satisfied that your system is better than ours, especially
in the obligatory recitations." And on this point a professor
said : " We need your obligatory method for our young men.
We must have the American system. It is lamentable how
many young men enter our Universities who never come to
their degrees, but waste their time in idleness, in gaming, and
in beer. This comes of having attendance upon lectures vol-
untary, at too early an age."

It should be understood that, in matters of education, Amer-
tea ts no longer a borrower on the European market She has
something to give in exchange for whatever she receives ; and she
cannot afford to give her sons into the hands of strangers at the
most critical period of youth. To sum up all, an American youth
of from twelve to twenty would have little to gain in a Euro-
pean education, and if left without parental guidance and con-
trol, would run the risk of losing much. He might lose his
manners and his morals ; his patriotic memories and aspirations ;
his religious habits and beliefs ; he must needs lose his identity
with American alumni — so desirable for his comfort and his
influence in after years, and he would surely lack that faculty
of speech and pen in his native tongue, and that discipline of
his reasoning powers in the straightforward, honest, practical
American way, which are so necessary to his success in any de-
partment of professional or civil life, or in the employment of
any knowledge or science to the advantage of his fellow men.
An Americanized German can work his way far better, and is
altogether a better sort of creature, than a Germanized Ameri-
can.

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